A sublime jungle torch song just in time for Valentine's Day.
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On the release of the expanded Everasking Edition of last year's blockbuster album Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, Caroline Polachek noted how the new release features covers of two songs she "was addicted to and inspired by while recording" the LP. The original version of Default Genders' "Pharmacoma (For Ben Dietz)" does sound something like a building block of the lovesick universe Polachek built on her second solo LP. There are featherweight breaks that hint at dance music while soaring above it, and the vaguely medical heart monitor beeping heard on tracks like "I Believe" and "Hopedrunk Everasking."
On her version, titled "Coma," Polachek runs with the track's slippery rhythm and central vocal hook and builds a propulsive torch song in around it. Her sinuous melody stops time even in the face of the track's blustery drums. The music box-style chimes are embellished by Polachek and co-producer Danny L Harle, the drums doubled up. Like so many of Polachek's compositions, her vocal ad libs and melismatic runs say as much as the words, which are admittedly simple: she's in a coma, she's in a dream, she's floating. With a decadent breakdown that also references "Hopedrunk Everasking" and a conclusion that loops Carolines on top of Carolines, "Coma" hurtles towards a stunning crescendo of pure wordless emotion. It breaks out of the grid, bottling up and then exploding the almost nauseating rush of love and anxiety that started with "Welcome To My Island" and, presumably, ends here.