I love it when I come across an artist I’ve never heard of before and then think, “This is incredible: why?!”
Enter New York City’s Caroline Polachek, whose first album, 2019’s “Pang,” should have been in my collection. (A single from it, “So Hot Your’e Hurting My Feelings,” has almost 90 million listens on Spotify). What was I doing in 2019 to miss it?!!
Her new album, released in February 2023, “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You,” has become one of my favorites so far this year. Let’s start by disclaiming that its lead single, “Bunny Is A Rider,” was Pitchfork’s #1 song of 2021 (yes, I missed that somehow, too.)
She describes it as “a spicy little summer song about being unavailable,” and with its “whoo-hoos” and whistles and the way it clicks along, it can be a contender for a song of this Summer of 2023.
The opener, and one the best on the album, is the electronic “Welcome To My Island,” where she starts singing after an epic opening wail: “Welcome to my island, see the palm trees wave in the wind. Welcome to my island. Hope you like me, you ain’t leavin’…” It’s fresh, fun, catchy, and contains the inclusion of her trying to play guitar at around 3:10 into the song (she can’t… so the guitar solo is marvelously “dogshit” – her words.)
Once off the Island, Polachek says how the next track, the Balearic, trip-hoppy “Pretty in Possible,” as being the song she is “most proud of” from the album. It was born from a “cool experiment where Danny [Danny L Harle, her co-writer and producer] and I were like, “OK, let’s write a song that has no verses or choruses – where you just enter the song and flow.”
“Sunset” is a lovely Flamenco pop song (OK, with this and “Bunny is a Rider,” it’s hard to say what will be played the most around the poolside this summer). “So no regrets, ‘Cause you’re my sunset, fiery red. Forever fearless. And in your arms, a warm horizon. Don’t look back. Let’s ride away, let’s ride away.” It’s the most traditional-sounding song on the album, but that isn’t a knock against it.
And then, everything after is pure art pop bliss. But, so very accessible, your head turns… well, spins.
“Look over the edge, but not too far,” she says at the start and end of the beat-heavy, groovy “I Believe.” The last single from the album “Blood and Butter” carries trippy 1990s electronica harmonies with lyrics, “Let me dive through your face, to the sweetest kind of pain. Call you up. Nothin’ to say. No, I don’t need no entertaining.” You’ll listen to it, love it and then, towards the end, love it even more when the bagpipes kick in.
Yes. Bagpipes. It’s fantastic.
The final track, “Billions,” is haunting, with a reversed beat, creating an elegant dreamish backdrop for Caroline to sing in.
As Caroline said to The New Yorker in September 2021:
“One day, Harle sent her a beat that he’d written, and Polachek heard a melody out of nowhere, oceanic and potent, and started jotting down psychedelic images: a headless angel, an overflowing cup, a pearl inside an oyster. The beat and the images became the song “Billions.” She told me, “I wanted something that captured the afterglow of a reopening.“
It is a gorgeous song to finish the album, with a lovely choir to end the album: “Oh, I’ve never felt so close to you, I’ve never felt so close to you.”
“Desire, I Want To Turn Into You” is an impressive, fascinating, but more importantly, enjoyable listen. Caroline Polachek’s island isn’t one I will rush to leave any time soon.
8.5/10
Chris Garrod, July 8, 2023