Caroline Polachek: ‘Desire, I Want to Turn Into You’ Review
9.0
GENRE: Pop/Art Pop
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2023Either to suppress it or to succumb to it, desire requires a minimal sense of rebellion. Caroline Polachek is no stranger to such designs; she’s been singing about craving for love —even if it hurts—since her 2019 solo debut record, Pang. To those unfamiliar with her work, her music thus far has achieved the seemingly-impossible feat of sounding relatable even when it shouldn’t. Her siren-like voice works on every purposefully broken note, imprinting her desolating imagery of a lonely city girl in a sweater with insistent longevity. Pang is full of moments like this—the intentionally repetitive chorus of “Door” being the strongest example of a haunting sticky chorus. Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, her second record, arrives with big shoes to fill in. And yet, you feel no pressure or forced attempts on it.
Out of the overwhelming pile of material that has tried to emulate the music of the last two decades of the past century, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is unintentionally the most successful bid. The influences are very clearly there, but they get fused into one another so well it’s hard to decipher any specifics: the record travels back and forth from 90s’ folk pop to the downtempo trip-hop of early 2000s. But you won’t hear Polachek forcing a sonic style that’s not hers; rather, she’s continuing the oddly-addictive pop net that she began building on her first LP—the masochistic tendencies hidden in the sweet melodies of Pang can still be sensed in the rhythmic schemes and lyrics of its successor. Here, you will find playful synths, but also chords, acoustic guitar, flute, and even bagpipes—all of which coalesce into a sound so indisyocratic, so genuine that it could be placed anywhere between 1993 and 2005, all the while carrying the freshness of the surprisingly warm winter of 2023.
Like a lull breeze that blows your face on the highly anticipated first day of summer, the heat in Polachek’s voice can be felt in the very first seconds of the record. Her soaring “oh-oh’s” that evolve into screams in the intro of opener “Welcome To My Island” set the tone for the album: desire is an urgent feeling, and sometimes words take too long to explain it. But underneath the rushing beat and the immediatism of her voice in the song, the singer explores her own mind and repeats words of wisdom of her late father in the bridge (“He says watch your ego, watch your head girl/You're so smart so talented/But now the water's turning red”). The rest of the record sees Polachek navigate these interwoven clashing thoughts about the complexity of existing in modern times, and she does it with such euphoria that it’s hard to feel untouched by it. Her radiophonic “da-ra-ra’s” structured in between verses on “Pretty In Possible,” a song about the impracticality of being free, make it for a dreamy anthem rather than a bitter lamentation. “Time’s running out, innit?” she teases, though she still finds time for some existentialist reveries.
And just like the summer, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You doesn’t wait for you to catch-up—it leaves you wishing that each song were longer, like when you wish you had enjoyed the sun a bit more. Polachek speeds up without pause for quite a portion of the record: she sings about being unreachable over the funk bass line of “Bunny Is a Rider,” pays homage to her late friend, singer and producer Sophie, over a montage of Orchestra Hits on the Celine Dion-inspired and upbeat “I Believe,” and shares verses about friendship with Dido and Grimes over the acoustic-guitar-guided and drum & bass-tinged “Fly To You.” On the sepia “Sunset,” she croons “ohs ohs” and sings about disenchantment over a speedy strumming borrowed from gypsy flamenco that, at some point, sounds reminiscent of the pre-chorus of Roberto Carlos’s “Amor Perfeito.”
But whether Polachek is luring listeners into a trance over slow electronic tantric beats (“Blood and Butter”) or taking her time to expand on her story-telling abilities over an organ solo and drum reverb (“Butterfly Net”), you can still grasp the invisible thread that ties the record together in this atmospheric world of its own. She does offer you another moment of controlled catharsis on “Smoke” before kissing you goodbye with the help of a children’s choir on closing track “Billions,” a song that feels like the last day of a trip that has been nothing short of liberating.
With this record, Polachek is strengthening a unique pop lexicon that she started on her solo debut, solidifying the image of a popstar whose creative concepts go beyond strangely-addictive melodies and bucolic lyrics—the Polachek world, it seems, transpire artistic inspiration that goes from eye-pleasing color palettes for dreamy music videos to accidentally-looking, skillfully-crafted album artworks. Yet, most striking, perhaps, are her new melodic choices—sped-up drums, euphoric drops, fried vocalizations, tantric folk arrangements, anthemic choruses. Desire, I Want To Turn Into You ascends as a new Ray of Light of sorts, each song big in its own atmosphere but falling into place to form a canvas so pretty it’s hard to look elsewhere. For one reason or another, it’s quite exciting.
Listen to Desire, I Want To Turn Into You:
The debut studio album by the UK-based singer is a candid assemblage of self-confidence and insecurity, both at once.