Monika Brodka is Polish singer/songwriter, who rose to fame after winning the third season of Polish Pop Idol back in 2004. And since winning Polish Pop Idol, Brodka has released three critically and commercially successful albums in her native Poland — her full-length debut 2004’s Album was certified gold within a few months of its release, her sophomore effort 2006’s Moje piosenki (My Songs) was also certified gold; however, her third full-length effort, 2010’s Granda revealed a radical change in sonic direction, as the material drew from electro pop, rock, roots music and pop and received international attention, while being certified double platinum. Additionally, she’s received several Fryderyk Award nominations (Poland’s equivalent to both the BRIT and the Grammy Awards) winning a Song of the Year Award in 2013 for “Varsovie” off her LAX EP while singles such as “Ten”, “Dziewczyna Mojego Chłopaka”, “Miałeś być” and “Znam Cię Na Pamięć” have all topped the Polish charts.
As for the aforementioned LAX EP, Brodka along with producer and engineer Bartosz Dziedzic wrote and recorded the material while at Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles, and the material included two songs with lyrics written and sung in English, the aforementioned “Varsovie” and “Dancing Shoes” along with remixes. Of course with tremendous success across her homeland under her belt, Brodka hopes to expand her profile Stateside with the recent release of her fourth album, Clashes, which is also her English language debut, as well as arguably her most ambitious and diverse album she’s released to date — with the material possessing elements of brooding, orchestral pop as you’ll hear on “Holy Holes,” off Clashes. Essentially, her fourth album finds Brodka continually experimenting and pushing her sound forward.
Sonically speaking, in “Holy Holes” Brodka pairs looping accordion chords, stomping percussion and her gorgeous and lilting Kate Bush-like vocals, buzzing bursts of what sounds like guitar and stomping percussion to create a song that manages to be simultaneously intimate and cinematic while drawing from folk, orchestral pop, jazz and other genres. Additionally, as Brodka mentions in press notes, the material on the album thematically draws from her earliest experiences and memories of Catholic Church services. “For this album the big inspiration was liturgical outfits,” the Polish singer/songwriter explains. “I wanted to take the colors – silver, gold, white, purple, blue – and the shapes of some of these clothes and turn them into something more modern. I am always trying to take some of the meanings of the subjects that I am interested in, chew them up, digest them, and throw up something that is more my kind of thing.”
Directed by Jan Simon, the recently released video for “Holy Holes” pairs the song’s dramatic vocals features a series of geometric shapes being filmed as they move across the screen in a dramatic, slow-motion.
