Basia Bulat today shared “Disco Polo,” the third single from her new album Basia’s Palace, out February 21st. A folk song named for a genre of Polish dance music beloved by her late father, the track honors the dichotomy of Bulat’s musical inheritance from him and her mother. “This is an homage to what I feel like is the two sides of my musical lineage–my mother was a classically trained piano and guitar teacher, and my father’s favourite genre was Disco Polo. About the only thing we could all agree on was the oldies radio station that was the peacemaker of our home when I was a child,” she says. “I wanted to write something that felt like a folk tale about those genres and how they still influence me after all this time–even now every time I sit down at the piano all those different musical worlds swirl around each other and try to dance together in my mind.”
“Disco Polo” is accompanied by an evocative, elegant video directed by Nora Rosenthal, who also created the interconnected clips for previous singles “Baby” and “My Angel.” “From the outset, Basia and I had spoken about having three generations of women appearing in ‘Baby,’ the first video in this series, but for ‘Disco Polo’ we wanted Louise, the woman of Basia’s mom’s generation in ‘Baby,’ to appear alongside her peers – all of them in their own way so elegant and vibrant – acting as a chorus of backup dancers,” Rosenthal explains. “For some reason we never talked about referencing ‘Disco Polo’ as a genre of 1990s Polish music until we were practically on set, but I like to think that somehow the fan blowing Basia’s hair is its own little reference to that era.” Co-produced by Bulat with frequent collaborator Mark Lawson (who worked with her on previous albums Tall Tall Shadow and The Garden), mixed by legendary engineer Tucker Martine (Beth Orton, Neko Case, The National), and featuring string arrangements by Grammy-nominated Drew Jurecka (Dua Lipa, Metric, Alvvays), Basia’s Palace is now available for pre-order and pre-save.
