SHORT BIO
Brianna Kočka is a singer-songwriter and producer from Minneapolis, MN. She has shared the stage with Marc Cohn, The Cult, and has had her music featured on General Hospital, 20/20, Betrayed, Siesta Keys and many other television shows. Evoking the instrumentation of Joni Mitchell, the intimacy of Nick Drake and mournful harmonies of Americana pioneer Gillian Welch, Kočka’s songs are both autobiographical and fantasy, documents of facing phantoms, and fleeing them.
On May 14, 2021, Brianna released her fourth solo album, Let It Stay, her most masterful and challenging work to date. Let It Stay takes you on a sonic journey from chaos to calm, depicting the juxtaposition of closeness and longing both through lyric and sound.
Previous releases include: Three Songs (2019), an autobiographical look at love, loss, and grief; Dreamlife (2018); and Write by Night (2010). Brianna also wrote, sang and played in the psychedelic/trip hop band Sun Gods to Gamma Rays between 2012-2015, who released two albums. She has also released one album of indie-rock songs (The Black EP) under an alter-ego, CAETANI, in 2011.
LONG BIO
Brianna Kočka is a prolific songwriter who has been a part of a handful of projects throughout Minnesota. While each project has had it’s own distinct sound, Kočka is best known for her honesty through songwriting—she believes that music is a form of give and take, that lyrics and melodies are an important part of shared life, and that we use these creative spaces to engage in our humanness together.
Brianna grew up in a suburb of the Twin Cities, teaching herself to play guitar at age twelve, and subsequently started to write songs soon thereafter. She released her first album, “Write by Night,” in 2010 under her own name. This album was a collection of songs related to the end of an important relationship in her life, and the joys of living in the Maritimes of Canada, where she lived from 2007 - 2011.
In the spring of 2011 Kočka moved back to Minneapolis and created her alter-ego, CAETANI, and released an EP of five indie-rock songs (“The Black EP”) to acclaim in the local music scene. The five song EP was an introspective look at five specific relationships in her life, each song representing a different person, including herself.
In the winter of 2012 she and a group of friends created the Psychedelic/Trip Hop group Sun Gods to Gamma Rays, and over three years released an EP (“The Water, The Wave”) and one full length album (“A Ghost to Find”), while playing extensively throughout the Twin Cities and Midwest. Each of these albums are filled with lyrics about Brianna’s divorce from organized religion, as well as a newfound look at feminism and sensuality.
Needing a break from city life, Brianna moved to an island off the east coast to work and live for ten months. While there she began playing guitar again, and out poured an album's worth of Folk/Americana songs related to the hardships of life, the realities of marriage, and living in isolation. After Kočka moved back to the Twin Cities, she released her second studio album, Dreamlife, on May 1, 2018.
Brianna’s third album is an autobiographical look at love, loss and grief, taking place chronologically from the first optimistic moments of falling in love, to the final moments of losing your loved one to illness. It was also Brianna’s first time producing and arranging the entire album from front to back. Each song has a distinct flavor, from pop-country, to pure Americana, to almost Jazz like singer-songwriter songs. Three Songs was self-released on November 12, 2019.
Amidst a global pandemic in 2020, Brianna wrote Let It Stay, a collection of songs that portray deep questioning and self-witnessing admist tradgedy, civil unrest, isolation and within it all, love. Her most masterful work to date, the songs on Let It Stay are genre-defying and true to form. Produced by Kočka, the album was self-released on May 14, 2021.
BAND INFO
Brianna plays solo, as a duo and with a full band. Current and past band members include:
Addie Strei (clarinet, saxiphone, vocals), Lighnin’ Joe Peterson (organ), Adam Wozniak (bass), Mike Gunvalson (drums), Lars-Erik Larson (drums, paino, accordion), Kai Brewster (bass), Joey Hayes (drums), Jimmy Barnett (acoustic guitar, vocals), Zack Warpinski (pedal steel), Canner Price (pedal steel), Nick Costa (electric guitar), August Ogren (drums), and Leng Moua (bass).
