BRUT Brodka

• 1Come To Me03:50
• 2Game Change03:38
• 3Hey Man02:59
• 4Imagination04:07
• 5Falling Into You03:32
• 6You Think You Know Me04:24
• 7Fruits04:09
• 8In My Eyes03:35
• 9The World Is You03:34
• 10Chasing Ghosts05:22
• 11Sadness03:06
• Total Runtime42:16

Info for BRUT

Polish alt-pop superstar Brodka announces new album BRUT; a powerful examination of gender, self-image and society. Hot on the heels of her Speedy Wunderground 7” 'Wrong Party', BRUT was recorded with Boxed In’s Oli Bayston (Kelly Lee Owens, Loyle Carner) and finds Brodka blurring the boundaries between natural and synthetic sounds. Post-punk riffs, icy synths and the serrated, heavily-processed guitar sounds that slice through glittering electro-pop to bring an industrial edge to the brutalism-inspired vision.

"This is a pop album with the self assured confidence of a performer who knows she is a star. I was dragged into her orbit with the single ‘Game Change’ which has a concrete brutalist hardness behind the synths and beats. I like this album, there isn’t a formula for the songs, there’s only really one thing holding it all together and that’s Brodka’s vocals, a slight accent and whichever expression or emotion she’s choosing to show in each track. Skittering beats and shining synths slide into aggressive drums and guitars. It’s a definite pop album but it wavers outside of the tracks, wobbly in places and slow and sensual in others.

There are sad and emotional songs, songs that sound like they belong inside a noir thriller. oscillating noises and funky drumming. It’s dramatic and sexy, smooth and pure. It’s pop music done with an off centre groove. So dance to it." (fighting-boredom.co.uk)

Brodka

Monika Brodka
It’s the day after her 29th birthday, and Monika Brodka—better known simply as Brodka—has shocked her fans with an Instagram post of her freshly shaved head. The Polish singer/songwriter laughs at the frenzy she’s accidently created while still in bed with her two cats in her Warsaw apartment. But perhaps it’s also the surprise she still has the ability to shock at all that has her smiling.

Brodka’s breakthrough in her home country came thanks to her 2004 win on Polish Pop Idol. Her first two efforts minted her as a mainstream commercial pop darling, an image she successfully began to subvert with 2010’s Granda, which she recorded using traditional Polish folk instruments, which she then remixed to create spiky electro pop. Last year’s Clashes (her first international release) further fiddled with the script, an exercise in eclecticism with its arms around both stripped-down, Patti Smith-style punk and melancholy folk. Over the course of 12 tracks Brodka manages a confessional sort of storytelling without actually revealing anything personal—her tales of sex, heartache, and breakups veiled behind images of cannibalism, funerals, and a girl dreaming about horses. (That last detail sounds like it owes something to Belle and Sebastian, but is actually a nod to Courtney Love.)

Brodka played an official showcase in Austin last week at SXSW, at the chaotic center of the festival on corner of Red River and 6th Street on the final Friday. Outside, roving packs of K2 zombies celebrated St. Patrick’s day while sophisticated Europeans with bejeweled faces played pop music. During a rocky soundcheck, the monitors went so out of whack that the ceiling shook and dust fell onto the stage, causing Brodka to proclaim, “It’s snowing in Austin.” The set began with a somber electronic organ and tambourine before a skull-pounding single drum joined in. Her stoic confidence and shaved head can’t help but conjure a comparison to Sinead O’Connor. But Brodka is her own brand of 21st century pop star, inspired by post-punk and a survivor of Poland’s answer to American Idol.

In person, the musician is incredibly forthcoming, recounting her struggles to focus, love of working in different cities, and that one time at SXSW when she embraced her inner rock star.

This album contains no booklet.