- An astonishing blend of modern sophisti-pop and dance music that probes into the confusing, sometimes grotesque depths of love.
- Caroline Polachek plays a long game. She released the first single from her second album, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, almost two years ago. "Bunny Is A Rider," with its nonsensical yet profound refrain about an elusive woman—"I'm so non-physical"—went viral, infecting everyone's ears until its weightless groove became the cryptic anthem of an entire year. She followed it with cerebral singles like "Billions" and "Sunset," at turns mysterious and vulnerable, before properly kicking off the album cycle with "Welcome To My Island." It's a vibrant and bizarre mix of disco, soft rock and spoken word, with an irresistible chorus: "Desire / I want to turn into you."
That hook, another blend of words that sound confusing but natural together, tied all the loose ends of those singles together. Welcome to her island, hope you like her, because you're not leaving. The title track, and the 12-song album as a whole, explores love and longing in all its gruesome depths. If her debut album Pang was about emerging from the cocoon of a breakup and finding giddy new happiness—"you're so hot it's hurting my feelings"—then Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is about what happens when you're not sure if you want the person or you want to be them.
Key example: "Blood And Butter," a William Orbit-tinged ballad that becomes bouncier—buoyant nylon guitars, bagpipes—as its lyrics grow more uncomfortable. "Let me dive through your face / To the sweetest kind of pain," she sings, adding later, "Get closer than your new tattoo." In its blend of electronic and acoustic, the vulgar and the tender, the song outlines Polachek's visceral love, painted in "blood and butter"—when something that sustains you also becomes part of you.
Polachek's philosophies of love unfurl over a survey of '90s music, lushly prepared by her and Danny L. Harle (with further assists from the likes of Sega Bodega and A. G. Cook). There's bubbly '90s pop on "Pretty In Possible," Jaco Pastorius-style fretless bass on the sparse "Crude Drawing Of An Angel," flamenco pop on "Believe." The album also subtly incorporates dance music in a way that feels retro, authentic and au courant all at once. In a PinkPantheress-dominated world, the floaty drum & bass of "Fly To You" might be expected, but the chiming guitar on the chorus comes from a whole other world entirely, sparkling like the clarion digital tones of an '80s Prefab Sprout or Scritti Politti record.
That's the other thing about Desire, I Want To Turn Into You: it sounds incredible, with deep, massaging lows and brilliantly bright textures. The springy` UK garage of "I Believe" isn't quite fit for the club, but it still hits hard, underlining the poignant lyrics—"I don't know / but I believe / We'll get another day together," she sings in a song dedicated to the late SOPHIE—and padding the edges with orchestra hits that would feel over-the-top if they weren't so light and diaphanous, as if made out of gossamer.
Ditto the guitar on "Sunset," or the way the backing vocals on "Smoke" puff through the air gracefully—or, especially, the near-infuriating sound of a dying smoke alarm in the peripheries of "Hopedrunk Everasking," the album's most naked, barely-there song with a chilling refrain: "Centuries come and go / They'll find our bones / And yet they won't." The loud bleeping adds a lurid shade to the song, as if it were a transmission from a seedy motel room, the last words of a flickering soul about to depart, only rescued by the heartwarming sweep of "Smoke" that follows later: "And the fallout doesn't phase me."
Those lines start an irrepressible bridge in "Smoke," which mirrors the melody chanted at the beginning of "Pretty In Possible," one of those moments where you start to comprehend the tapestry that Desire, I Want To Turn Into You weaves. "Pretty In Possible" is a litany of metaphors and worries over a jaunty beat, while "Smoke" is the resolution, the comfort that even if you end up hurt, you hurt together. This sentiment bleeds into the impressionistic mirage of "Billions," a track of bizarre tercets—"Salting, flavour / Lies like a sailor / But he loves like a painter," for example. In the video, Polachek eats bunches of grapes, living a life of sensual indulgence as she mangles the word "Billions" at the end of each line, lost in reverie, before the song finishes surreally with a children's church choir. It's a vision of love in Caroline Polachek's world: meted out in words that sound as luxurious as their meanings, presented in gilded textures and through a Carrollian multiverse of shapes, sounds and ideas that only becomes richer the longer you spend there. It might take some time, but it's endlessly rewarding.
Tracklist01. Welcome To My Island
02. Pretty In Possible
03. Bunny Is A Rider
04. Sunset
05. Crude Drawing Of An Angel
06. I Believe
07. Fly To You feat. Grimes & Dido
08. Blood And Butter
09. Hopedrunk Everasking
10. Butterfly Net
11. Smoke
12. Billions