There are three names mentioned when it comes to singling out the Polish vocalists considered to be icons of pop music – Kayah, Ania Dąbrowska and Monika Brodka. However, the peak of Kayah's career was at the turn of the twentieth century, and Ania Dąbrowska's latest album was released in 2008. Although Iza Lach seemed to appear out of nowhere to challenge her older colleagues, she had recorded two LP’s, the last of which she also co-produced.
Iza is not the only musically talented member of the Lach family. Her sister Karolina played bass guitar in Formacja Nieżywych Schabuff, and her brother Łukasz is the front man of indie band L.Stadt. Most likely, the public first heard about Iza Lach from headlines about her collaboration with Snoop Dogg. On his website, the famous rapper announced a contest for the best version of his hit Set It Off . Iza Lach, like thousands of others, created a version of the song with her own vocals and entered it to the competition. Unlike the others, she won. Snoop Dogg posted her version of the song on his official Soundcloud profile, and they subsequently recorded the album Off the Wire.
Iza Lach recounts that from her early childhood she made her own decisions. As a 5 year old girl she decided to enter the contest Od przedszkola do Opola ( From Nursery School to Opole), which she won. That was the only talent show she entered. Ten years later, she started to record her first songs. She was also accepted to a music school, but dropped out before completing her final year.
She thinks of herself as a regular 23 year old girl who runs a blog with links to her favourite songs on the web and photos of what she's wearing. What makes her different from other girls her age is that when, as a result of breaking up with her boyfriend, she created several songs which she sent to record labels and was immediately invited to the studio.
The album Już Czas (It's Time) composed by the then 15 year old Iza offers girly but unpretentious music with lyrics written in Polish. Since the release of her single Nie (No), she has become a favourite of music journalists from the trend-setting independent music portals Porcys and Screeagers, who jointly agreed on Iza Lach's huge talent.
Although she didn't go on concert tours after releasing her first album, she kept on writing music which resulted in a release of her second album Krzyk (Scream) in 2011. The response of the critics was more than positive. Marek Fall from the Onet portal has called Iza the “brightest artist in the new wave of Polish pop music”. Again, all the lyrics are written in Polish, and they tell stories of a girl and her relationships, of a sense of guilt, of emotions caused by the age difference between her and her lover, and about pretending that she is stronger that she really is.
The music arrangement is elegantly modest but modern. The diverse use of synthesisers creates an interesting amalgamate of sounds that combine club beats with violin, acoustic guitar and pop tunes from the 80s. For the cover of Krzyk, Iza chose a fragment of Maciej Woltman’s poster for the film Star 80. And as she declared, no other picture would suit the music she created so perfectly.
Author: Małgorzata Halber, trans.&ed. G.S. May 2014