Songs
Online, you can find their 2014 EP Homework. Folksy and delicate, it still has its charm but the next few albums are where the band truly found its footing. After the first four-song EP, Coals had plans to release one more, yet that ultimately turned into an album – they were polishing up the tracks as late as summer 2016. Kacha spoke about their upcoming album:
We don’t know when we’ll finish the album, but we’ll definitely move in a different direction (strong inspirations: Spooky Black, Dean Blunt, Yung Lean), lots of ambient and piano. The album will show, hopefully not a one-sided, portrait of childhood. A little bit from the times when you would listen to Ich Troje, watch ‘Rower Błażeja’ [editor’s note: Błażej’s Bike, a Polish programme devoted to music interviews and discussions of controversial topics] and eat Lay’s crisps.
Coals’ debut album finally came out in 2017 with a strongly positive response from critics. Titled Tamagotchi, it referenced the popular 1990s toy – a small electronic animal you had to take care of. Tamagotchi created a sense of longing for the past and future, a kind of nostalgia. Singing in English, Kacha Kowalczyk evoked the melancholy of Lana Del Rey – perhaps a slight exaggeration, but a similar sense of darkness.
They recorded their single VHS Nightmare with producer Hatti Vatti, but perhaps the most important track was Rave 03, recorded with Bobkowski: When Kowalczyk sings ‘take me to the place / where techno resonates’, there is a yearning for what ‘we’ve missed’, and the things that are better than our everyday. In another sense: for a sense of losing yourself, submerging into another. When she sings, we have two separate visions – that everything comes to her easily, without effort, and simultaneously that she’s sacrificing herself for her art. Kowalczyk’s method of singing implies a sense of resignation and powerful emotions.
Winter 2019 saw the release of a four-track EP, Klan, which the creators themselves refer to as ‘hip-hop-esque’. Every track features a different guest: YouTube singer Dianka known for her own hip-hop collaborations; Robert Piernikowski, rapper and producer known for his duet Syny; barely 16-year old, megastar Schafter, who weaves together English and Polish in his rapping and singing; and finally hip-hop producer Kubi Producent, whose track was crowned by Bella Ćwir’s poetic phrases, a queer rapper and performer referred to by Vice as the ‘icon of internet freaks’.
To date this is their most cohesive and engaging release, a kind of ‘shortcut to Coals’ output’, while at the same time showcasing a diversity of music. It’s melodious and simultaneously rhythmic, thanks to its hip-hop and rap influences. The most catchy phrase was provided by Schafter: ‘rock me to sleep, rock me to sleep’, which Kowalczyk repeated on Blue’s chorus. And at the end of the song we hear: ‘Toto’s “Arica” on the radio’, a line that explains everything – the past, their parent’s generation, an old track, cringey and embarrassing but simultaneously gentle and anodyne – on the other hand, the line means nothing. Can you disappear into a song? ‘I’ll count to 100, escape to sleep’, repeat Kowalczyk and Piernikowski on Entele Pentele.
In December 2019, Coals released a new song and accompanying video for Sleepwalker, confirming that a new album is in the works. Built on a feisty, strong rhythm, the track felt like another step towards contemporary hip-hop – except for the vocals, this time featuring both artists.
The premiere of their album Docusoap through record label PIAS is slated for 6 March 2020; a month earlier, their single Pearls was released. Among the 13 diverse tracks is Oberek, co-created with British producer Felicita, a pillar of the PC Music label. Felicita has Polish roots and is fascinated with Polish folklore, especially when it’s ‘distorted’ by professionals for mass appeal (he teamed up with the Śląsk Song and Dance Ensemble to create a multimedia performance). We could go out on a limb and say that Coals’ attraction to the pop sounds of the 1980s stems from similar reasons to Felicita’s attraction to the Ensemble: A certain exaggeration, or inauthenticity. Let’s also not forget the duo’s Silesian background.
Coals’ 2020 sound has undergone an update, becoming sharper – it’s even more synthetic (processed vocals) and alongside the duo’s folk references, there’s trap, electronic melancholy, even references to classical music. The structure is similar: On Docusoap, there are classically structured songs with choruses alongside more experimental, non-linear formulas. Coals has not lost its interest with darkness, oscitancy and a certain inauthenticity (as showcased by the album’s title).