{"id":8084,"date":"2023-03-01T18:51:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T23:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/?p=8084"},"modified":"2023-03-01T18:51:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T23:51:11","slug":"review-caroline-polachek-desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/01\/review-caroline-polachek-desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Caroline Polachek &#8211; Desire, I Want To Turn Into You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So, we bark into another review diving into an artist I have never discussed before but have heard of based on features elsewhere. This entry is all about Caroline Polachek. Who is she? She&#8217;s a co-founder of the indie pop band Chairlift in the late 2000s until their disbandment in 2017. She has put out some solo work in the mid-2010s under different aliases like <em>Arcadia<\/em> (under Ramona Lisa) and <em>Drawing the Target Under The Arrow<\/em> under CEP (her initials).<\/p>\n<p>Her 3rd studio album\u00a0<em>Pang<\/em> is the first one released under her given name, and having listening to it prior, I can say that it&#8217;s an interesting piece of art pop. In addition to her solo output, lately I caught some of her features elsewhere. The most notable one for me is her providing vocals for Oneohtrix Point Never&#8217;s &#8220;Long Road Home&#8221; and &#8220;No Nightmares&#8221; off of <em>Magic Oneohtrix Point Never,\u00a0<\/em>as well as her feature (along with Christine and The Queens) on the Charli XCX single &#8220;New Shapes&#8221; off her 2022 album <em>Crash.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>With her new album\u00a0<em>Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, <\/em>some of the singles she released have been in the pipeline for some time now. &#8220;Bunny is a Rider&#8221; was released in 2021, and &#8220;Billions&#8221; was released in 2022; and yes, both tracks do make it in the list. &#8220;Billions&#8221; is one of my favorite singles of 2022, and it serves as the closer to the album. Three other singles &#8211; &#8220;Sunset&#8221;, &#8220;Welcome to My Island&#8221; and &#8220;Blood and Butter&#8221; &#8211; have also been released as well.<\/p>\n<p>So, the question is&#8230; does this album make me want to turn into a full fledged fan of Caroline Polachek?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qd4gyWC3SzE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Alright, I&#8217;m sold.<\/p>\n<p>The whole album has a pleasant aura from front to back with a gentle but experimental flourish: bagpipes, children&#8217;s choirs, Spanish guitar and even early 2000s&#8217; style radio pop, as Polachek describes herself. &#8220;Blood and Butter&#8221; is the track that features bagpipes in its instrumentation and low-key, it&#8217;s like how the saxophone is often used in most songs these days, although it&#8217;s not often we hear bagpipes in a pop song but it&#8217;s intriguing to hear them in there.<\/p>\n<p>Her vocals overall are often soothing\u00a0 and angelic in a way, such as on the songs &#8220;Hopedrunk Everlasting&#8221; and &#8220;Butterfly Net&#8221;, both of which have a soft, fluid flow that sounds elegant. &#8220;Billions&#8221; is a song I have listened to thousands of times when it was just a single, and it does make sense to serve as a closer with how the whole song is structured: the beginning, the build-up, the closing chorus with the Trinity&#8217;s Children Choir, and the way the choir sung the outro. It definitely has some emotional resonance, and I always go back to listen to those parts numerous times. Yeah, can you tell that I absolutely love &#8220;Billions&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>The first track on the album, &#8220;Welcome to My Island,&#8221; has her howling for 40 seconds and according to her, she&#8217;s going for it being bratty in the intersection of irrationally entitled and angsty, simmering in her ego and in her head.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a class=\"ReferentFragmentdesktop__ClickTarget-sc-110r0d9-0 jvutUp\" href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/27436321\/Caroline-polachek-welcome-to-my-island\/I-am-my-fathers-daughter-in-the-end-he-says-watch-your-ego-watch-your-head-girl-youre-so-smart-so-talented-but-now-the-waters-turning-red-and-its-all-your-fault-and-its-all-your-mess\"><span class=\"ReferentFragmentdesktop__Highlight-sc-110r0d9-1 jAzSMw\">I am my father&#8217;s daughter in the end<br \/>\nHe says, &#8220;Watch your ego, watch your head, girl<br \/>\nYou&#8217;re so smart, so talented<br \/>\nBut now the water&#8217;s turning red<br \/>\nAnd it&#8217;s all your fault and it&#8217;s all your mess<\/span><\/a><br \/>\nAnd you&#8217;re all alone and can&#8217;t go to bed<br \/>\nToo high on your adrenaline<br \/>\nYou gotta go somewhere where you can&#8217;t pretend<br \/>\nGo forget the rules, forget your friends<br \/>\nJust you and your reflection<br \/>\n&#8216;Cause nothing&#8217;s gonna be the same again<br \/>\nNo, nothing&#8217;s gonna be the same again&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Those lines are about her complicated relationship with her late father (he passed away in 2020 due to COVID), who never approved much of her music. The single &#8220;Bunny is a Rider&#8221; is described as a summer jam about being unavailable and impossible to get a hold of, and the production does make it a fascinating bop to listen to. The majority of the album&#8217;s production is handled by Danny L Harle and Polachek herself, with some additional help from A.G. Cook, Jim-E Stack, and Dan Nigro among others. The sound of it has a lot of melodic vibes within each song: whether it&#8217;s &#8220;Crude Drawing of an Angel&#8221; or &#8220;Smoke&#8221;, there&#8217;s something that feels like you ascended to another plane while hearing a track.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c5RnQYDEapQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fly To You&#8221; begins with this melodic intro that quickly delves into a mix of angelic drum &#8216;n bass sounds, Ibiza guitar, and of course the vocals of Caroline herself, and with the two lone features on this track being Grimes and Dido, it&#8217;s a win here. Also, since I haven&#8217;t much about Dido in a while, turns out she is still active as a musician (with her last album being from 2019). And yeah, we heard all about Grimes and Mr. &#8220;Worst Thing to Happen to Twitter since Twitter,&#8221; but I&#8217;m here about their performances. The two of them both have a verse while Caroline handles the choruses, and the song is all about a reunion: meeting someone again after a long time and how you feel as you see that person again.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Driving through the dark<br \/>\nLost but I&#8217;m free<br \/>\nI&#8217;m looking for something<br \/>\nThat nobody else can see<br \/>\nWill you still love me<br \/>\nAfter the bend?<br \/>\nRem\u0435mber what&#8217;s gone befor\u0435<br \/>\nNot loaded with regret<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeah, I have to say within a few listens of this, the album is slowly growing on me. Having only a taste of what Caroline Polachek had to offer, I was curious to see how an album of hers would be and I&#8217;m pleasantly delighted by the end result. It&#8217;s the case of me delving into new territory while being familiar with a few things they were in and this is a solid album. This is no sophomore slump from Polachek as she nails it.<\/p>\n<p><code id=\"yasr-editor-copy-overall\" class=\"yasr-copy-shortcode\"><\/code><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>FINAL VERDICT:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><strong>BUY IT. <\/strong><em>There&#8217;s a desire to go back to this album. Especially &#8220;Billions&#8221;. Yes, even after a year, it never gets old.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4zEQJrggKgk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>DESIRE, I WANT TO TURN INTO YOU<\/strong><\/em><strong> is released on The Orchard (Sony Music) and Polachek&#8217;s imprint Perpetual Novice. It is available on CD, LP, streaming services and digital download.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So, we bark into another review diving into an artist I have never discussed before but have heard of based on features elsewhere. \n<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/01\/review-caroline-polachek-desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you\/\"> [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","yasr_overall_rating":3.9,"yasr_post_is_review":"yes","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"MusicRecording","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[1066,631,1701,1626,1697,1698,1700,381,1699],"class_list":["post-8084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-album","tag-album-review","tag-alternative-pop","tag-art-pop","tag-caroline-polachek","tag-desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you","tag-perpetual-novice","tag-pop","tag-the-orchard"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.surrealresolution.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ab67616d0000b273de17893c581b6f4fbeba51e1.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GYHU-26o","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8084"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8094,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8084\/revisions\/8094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}