Polyrock was an American

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-r ...

/ new wave band formed in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in 1978 and active until the mid-1980s. Strongly influenced by

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

, the group was produced by the composer

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive ...

and

Kurt Munkacsi Kurt is a male given name of Germanic or Turkish origin. ''Kurt'' or ''Curt'' originated as short forms of the Germanic Conrad, depending on geographical usage, with meanings including counselor or advisor. In Turkish, Kurt means "Wolf" and is ...

. The band, led by singer/guitarist Billy Robertson (formerly of the group Model Citizens), had a keyboard-heavy, pattern-based sound strongly reminiscent of Glass's work; in fact, Glass performed on their first two albums. Polyrock's lineup also included vocalist Catherine Oblasney, guitarist Tommy Robertson, drummer Joseph Yannece, keyboard player Lenny Aaron, and Curt Cosentino. The group signed with

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

by 1980, and delivered their debut album that same year. Another album followed in 1981 (''Changing Hearts''), but Polyrock disbanded in 1983. The band are sometimes said to have released another album in 1981 (''Electro-Romantic''), but, apparently, no such album exists. They were often compared by critics to

Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.Talkin ...

, another band of the same era, though they never approached that band's fame. In 1990, Billy Robertson and Catherine Oblasney formed the group 9 Ways to Sunday and released a self-titled album. Robertson died in September 2018. A memorial was held September 24, 2018, at the Brooklyn Ice House bar in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, near where Robertson lived.

Discography

Studio albums

*''

Polyrock Polyrock was an American post-punk/ new wave band formed in New York City in 1978 and active until the mid-1980s. Strongly influenced by minimalism, the group was produced by the composer Philip Glass and Kurt Munkacsi. The band, led by singer ...

'' (1980) *''

Changing Hearts ''Changing Hearts'' is the second studio album by the American band Polyrock, released in 1981. It was produced by Philip Glass, who was attracted to the band's use of musical repetition. Critical reception ''Trouser Press'' wrote that "Billy and ...

'' (1981)

Extended play

*''Above the Fruited Plain'' (1982)

Compilation albums

*''RCA Special Radio Series Vol. III'' (1980) (LP of Radio recordings) *''No Love Lost'' (1986) (Cassette compilation of various unreleased tracks) *Blitz (1981) (LP compilation of various artist)

Singles

*"Romantic Me" / "Your Dragging Feet" (1980) (No. 69

lub Play Singles Lub may refer to: * Supremum In mathematics, the infimum (abbreviated inf; plural infima) of a subset S of a partially ordered set P is a greatest element in P that is less than or equal to each element of S, if such an element exists. Conse ...

*"Working on My Love" / "Call of the Wild" (1982)

References

External links

Allmusic.com AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the datab ...

br>Band overviewWilliam Robertson Facebook PageRed Hook Star Review Billy Robertson Memorial Notice
*https://www.discogs.com/release/1228546-Various-Blitz {{Authority control American new wave musical groups Dance-rock musical groups Musical groups from New York City Musical groups established in 1978 RCA Records artists 1980s disestablishments 1978 establishments in New York City