
Basia Bulat today shared “Disco Polo,” the third single from her new album Basia’s Palace, out February 21st via Secret City Records. 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).
Watch the video for 'Disco Polo' here
Previous singles “Baby” and “My Angel” have been received warmly by BBC Radio 6 Music, KCRW, Flood Magazine, Rolling Stone France, Exclaim!, Brooklyn Vegan, CBC Music, Indie 88 and many more. She is confirmed to be on the German radio show Radio Eins “Bikini” for a session in January, performing tracks from the new album.
Following a Toronto support for Michael Kiwanuka in September 2024 and a European tour supporting Efterklang this month, the Montreal-based Bulat–a three-time Polaris Music Prize finalist and five-time JUNO Award nominee–will begin her North American tour in support of the album on February 14th in Calgary, Canada. The current itinerary is below.
The property at the heart of Basia’s Palace is at once Bulat’s apartment, her jam-space, and the inside of her head. It is a place festooned with love and memory, and bad wiring; it’s a paradise that comes alive in the wee hours of the night–a time that’s suited to video games and dusty old records, when you sit in all that richness and take in all the mess we inherit. Basia’s Palace got its start in 2022. A new home, a new family, a pause: the singer was finally finding time to hear her own thoughts, to think about old stories, to boot up her Nintendo to play Dragon Warrior 4. It brought to mind anecdotes Bulat had heard about Leonard Cohen—how he used to do his best writing at three or four a.m., before his kids woke up, when he’d sit and toy with his Casio’s presets. Now it was Bulat sneaking down to play RPGs or to make music on her MacBook, listening for the spirit-world at a time when the veil felt thinnest. The songs she was creating didn’t feel like anything she had recorded before—MIDI soundscapes that floated and gleamed, like hidden levels above (or below) the action. And as she looked around at the relics and heirlooms of life, she found herself thinking about her memories differently, too, and finding new ways of understanding all that happened in her life across the years.
The album that emerged from all this is the softest and most searching of her career. Basia’s Palace is like a time-travel score, with Bulat akin to Chrono Trigger’s intrepid adventurer, going back into the past to shape the events of the future. After years of releasing records where live performance came first—culminating in The Garden, which reimagined some of her best-loved songs with help from a string quartet—the singer-songwriter wanted to express herself in a completely different way, composing with MIDI instead of piano or guitar. She found herself moving through a dreamworld of whispers, synths, early Eurovision tunes–and her great uncle’s gauzy Maryla Rodowicz and Marek Grechuta LPs. Throughout, Bulat pays tribute to the magic of creation and the spellwork of performance. This is the truest location of Basia’s Palace: not just the Mile End jam-space where she recorded much of this LP; not just her home, her family, or her searching spirit. But the moment itself—the one that happens on-stage, or in the instant of creation—when a song leaves Basia’s heart and leaps onto her lips.
Basia Bulat Live Dates:
- 1/17/25 - Hamburg, DE - Christianskirche Altona*
- 1/18/25 - Antwerp, BE - De Singel*
- 1/19/25 - Maastricht, NL - Muziekgieterij*
- 1/20/25 - Utrecht, NL - TivoliVredenburg*
- 1/22/25 - Oberhausen, DE - Ebertbad*
- 1/23/25 - Wiesbaden, DE - Kesselhaus*
- 1/24/25 - Munich, DE - Strom*
- 1/27/24 - Stockholm, SE - Pet Sounds Bar
- 1/29/25 - Paris, FR - Alhambra*
- 2/14/25 - Calgary, AB - Block Heater
- 2/15/25 - St. Albert, AB - Arden Theatre
- 2/16/25 - Regina, SK - Darke Hall
- 3/7/25 - Ottawa - NAC
- 3/14/25 - Montreal, QC - Théâtre Fairmount
- 3/15/25 - Sherbrooke, QC - La Petite Boîte Noire
- 3/19/25 - Boston, MA - City Winery
- 3/20/25 - New York City, NY - Joe's Pub
- 3/21/25 - Washington, DC - Pearl Street Warehouse
- 3/22/25 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
- 3/28/25 - Quebec City - Théâtre Petit Champlain
- 4/2/25 - Chicago, IL - Old Town School of Folk Music
- 4/3/25 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
- 4/4/25 - Minneapolis, MN - Cedar Cultural Center
- 4/5/25 - Milwaukee, WI - Vivarium
- 4/30/25 - Vancouver, BC - Hollywood Theatre
- 5/2/25 - Seattle, WA - Triple Door
- 5/3/25 - Portland, OR - Mission Theater
- 5/5/25 - San Francisco, CA - The Chapel
- 5/7/25 - Los Angeles, CA - The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever
- 5/22/25 - Toronto, ON - The Great Hall
- 5/23/25 - London, ON - Aeolian Hall
*supporting Efterklang