Review of Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, by Caroline Polachek | Of all kinds

We feel in the most recent project of the singer-songwriter Caroline Polachek, Desire, I Want to Turn Into Youthe ambition to put forward an adventurous genre that resembles only her, through diverse and marked musical inspirations.

Half of the late duo Chairlift (which she formed with Aaron Pfenning) knows her music like the back of her hand, she who produces in addition to composing, playing several instruments and writing (especially for stars like Beyoncé or Christine and the Queens). This expertise translates into a set of stunningly original songs, impeccably crafted. To top it off, his vocal performance is phenomenal on this album, which takes his experimental pop further than ever.

On Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, released on Valentine’s Day, Caroline Polachek approaches love and desire as things in constant motion, powerful and inevitable, for better or for worse.

The musical palette of this disc is immense. Polachek sometimes lets clear trip-hop influences seep into his verses, rhythms and delivery (for example, on the tumultuous electro-pop piece Welcome To My Island, which opens the 45-minute album). Drum and bass finds a good place in the pieces mainly oriented towards synth-pop. Electronic music sticks here to the codes of pop music, then draws inspiration from all kinds of genres. All these encounters work, embarking us each time in different sonic universes, each bearing the distinct and very skilful paw of Caroline Polachek.

Fly To Youwith Grimes and Dido, is exceptional: the voices of the three artists, angelic, arise with a destabilizing lightness on the rhythms of drum and bass. Sunset draws on Spanish musical traditions (and does it as well as a track by Rosalía). I Believejerky and breathless, is a magnificent incursion into the breakbeat, which we find later on the finale, trillion. Butterfly Net, one of our favorites, responds rather to the rules of the vaporous folk rock of 50 years ago.

Caroline Polachek has the invaluable ability to use all her musical knowledge and her great talent to create an object that stands out from all the rest and tells its own story.