Jonny Polonsky delves into 'Power and Greed and Money and Sex and Death'

“With these songs, I wanted to be as bold and stark and in your face as possible,” Jonny Polonsky says about his new album. “I wanted the vocals really loud and dry, so that you can understand all the words. I wanted it to feel kind of like an avalanche. To me, that’s what it’s like out in the world these days – overwhelming and intense. That’s what the title is about, too.”

Power and Greed and Money and Sex and Death is due out November 13 on Ghostworks Recordings. “It just popped in my head, and I wrote it down and just started laughing,” he says. “That’s always a good sign. Like, ‘I can’t possibly say that’ – but I want to. So that’s the title.”

Polonsky had just returned home to Brooklyn after two weeks of dates in Europe – and the filming of a documentary -- just before the release of his album Kingdom of Sleep, which came out in early March. New York had just emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic and the city shut down. “It was such a bizarre and frightening time,” he says, but it ended up spurring his creativity. He began writing new songs, and he resumed work on some others that were in various states of completion.

Also, inspired by Dylan’s epic “Murder Most Foul” and Sly and the Family Stone’s 1971 classic There’s a Riot Goin’ On, Polonsky began thinking about the purposes music can serve in a tumultuous time.

“I thought about the usefulness of songs,” Polonsky says about selecting the material for this album. “So when I had a list, I thought, ‘What’s the use of this song – to me, and perhaps to other people?”

Polonsky recorded Power and Greed and Money and Sex and Death in his apartment on his laptop. He has been making albums for nearly twenty-five years and plays guitar, bass and keyboards here. Timpani, bagpipes, harp, koto drums, erhu and programmed drums are also part of the sound.