[2] According to Channy Leaneagh, Poliça is Polish for "policy", and she sees it as a reference to an unwritten code that guides the members when they play together, as well as its work ethic.

[4] From a musical family, Leaneagh attended the Ramsey Fine Arts school, where she learned to dance, play violin and participated in theater.

[5] She graduated from Minneapolis South High School where she met Alexei Casselle and formed an acoustic folk-rock duo, Roma di Luna.

Casselle, who was primarily a hip-hop performer in the groups Oddjobs and Kill the Vultures, sent Leaneagh tapes of his acoustic songs while she was in Cambodia teaching art for a year.

[13] Olson declined to be part of a live set-up and Bierden, Christopherson and Ivascu together with Leaneagh became the Poliça touring outfit.

"[1] Their debut, Give You the Ghost, was released on Valentine's Day, 2012 on Totally Gross National Product, a local community-based label, founded by drummer Drew Christopherson and Ryan Olson.

In August 2012, it was announced that the band had signed with Mom + Pop records and re-released the album on the 14th of that month, together with a remix EP.

[20] As part of the promotional mix, the band played BBC2's Later... with Jools Holland on October 11, 2013, and, three days later, on BBC Radio 6 Music's Lauren Laverne show from Maida Vale Studios in London.

[20] Leaneagh was also among the "friends" that contributed to The Flaming Lips' "The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down… What a Sound," a reworking of the Stone Roses debut album out Black Friday 2013.

[25] It was also included in the expanded version of the album that was released simultaneously and supported by a North American club tour and festival dates in Europe.

"[31] Poliça teamed up with Stargaze, a Berlin-based orchestral collective, to develop the new album, Music for the Long Emergency which was released on February 16, 2018, on Transgressive Records.

[32] The two groups first met in February 2016 in Berlin[33] during the Liquid Music project hosted by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and first worked together on Bruise Blood: Reimagining Steve Reich's 'Music for Pieces of Wood'.