Listen if you like: singing into your hairbrush popstar cosplaying, diverse instrumentation, mythology, using big words for the sake of being the most esoteric bitch at the function, well thought out aesthetics, going bunny mode, ‘The Sensual World’ - Kate Bush, ‘Ray of Light’ – Madonna, fusion of electronic and acoustic production, poetic sexting, Eartheater, philosophising on the dancefloor, living your fantasy, being a deeply feeling being searching for possibility, abundance and fulfilment in a world that would much prefer you to shut up and be a profit-maximiser. 

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, the sophomore album of prolific producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Wikipedia’s ‘midriff’ ambassador, Caroline Polachek, is an enigmatically delicious treasure and my favourite release of 2023 thus far. A 12-track epic that includes bizarre lyrics about bunnies (see ‘Bunny is a Rider’), Celine Dion-inspired divaisms conceived on an acid trip in Italy (see ‘I Believe’) and a sweeping, triumphant bagpipe solo (see ‘Blood and Butter’), Desire is truly abundant. In reading this review, you will see what I mean.

The record is deliberately puzzling. Listeners are encouraged to mull over Desire’s multitudes but also to lean into the strangely pleasurable uncertainty of it all. I won’t be able to capture every listener’s interpretation of the project, but it is this throughline of possibility that ties the record together, and this possibility that makes our lives joyful, unique and free. One’s initial question is likely to concern the peculiar title before us. Polachek has addressed this confusion, noting three possible interpretations whilst more generally inviting her audience to see the record as a portal to their own ‘sensory imaginations’. The first she considers is wanting to literally become desire in the abstract sense: the energy of yearning, wanting, longing. The second is the obsessive (perhaps unsettling) craving to become the one you desire. When you’re falling in love with someone, there is no end to how close you want to be to them (think Grenouille in Süskind’s ‘Perfume’ for a particularly grotesque iteration of this). This seems particularly salient in album highlight ‘Blood and Butter’: Polachek croons “let me dive through your face” and “I get closer than your new tattoo”. The final meaning she discusses is the sweetest, simply the longing to turn towards the one you desire, to be held.

One of the album’s greatest triumphs is this playful embrace of contradiction, contrast and confusion. It flies in the face of our instinct to get everything (the video essay instinct) and to deconstruct art to find its beauty rather than embrace its abstraction (case in point). The album bridges moments of deep interpersonal intimacy immediately followed by grand, universal anthems. Listening to ‘Crude Drawing of an Angel’ feels like an intrusion on an intensely private moment. You feel uniquely privy to the perverted narrator who secretly draws their sleeping, unaware “angel”. Polachek has fittingly dubbed the song ‘scorny’ (scary and horny - see Karen Kusama’s ‘Jennifer’s Body’ or Andrzej Zulawksi’s ‘Possession’ for my fave scorny film picks). And yet, ‘Crude Drawing’ is followed by the infectiously optimistic ‘I Believe’, a paean of praise for immortality dedicated to the late, great SOPHIE. It could fill stadiums and is glorious, danceable fun.

‘Welcome to My Island’ is a suitably massive opener for a massive album. The track begins with some serious vocal gymnastics (Ms. Polachek making it clear that she is not fucking around) and descends into a bratty, strut-appropriate, ego-maniac anthem for the delulu among us who believe ‘it’s my world, you’re just living in it’. “Welcome to my island / Hope you like me, you ain’t leaving” is the staccato mantra of the track. It also features Polachek shredding on guitar – hot. But while ‘Welcome to My Island’ is solipsism embodied, the album’s finale, ‘Billions’, is dissolution of the ego in the face of a world so abundant, so overflowing, it threatens to overwhelm us. Perhaps it is more favourable to sonder, to realise that each stranger we pass is living a life as vivid and complex as ours – as “cornucopeiac”, if you will. And though these lives are confusing, humorous, erotic, destructive and consist of billions of contradictions, to Polachek, intimacy is and must still be possible. In the song’s outro, Polachek cedes control to the Trinity Croydon Children’s Choir, chanting “I never felt so close to you”.

Desire is a masterclass in pop worldbuilding. The buzzing beetles and birds of ‘Bunny is a Rider’ drive you deep into the jungle with our unavailable, playful and provocative protagonist ‘Bunny’. The elemental, tectonic bass of ‘Smoke’ transports you to the foot of an erupting volcano. The breezy drum and bass, shimmering acoustic guitar and interlocking vocal melodies of Polachek, Dido and Grimes on ‘Fly to You’ evoke the simple joy of returning to the one you love. A special shoutout for this atmosphere-forging wizardry must go to Danny L Harle (formerly PC Music), Polachek’s producing partner across 11 of the album’s 12 tracks. Harle and Polachek are frequent collaborators: on Polachek’s debut ‘Pang’ initially, and later on ‘Harlecore’ with Polachek’s siren-like voice featuring as the aptly named ‘DJ Ocean’. Harle can be seen lurking in the background of Desire’s cover holding his daughter Nico Harle. Her vocals are sampled in ‘Bunny is a Rider’ – a nod to that iconic baby sample in Aaliyah’s ‘Are You That Somebody’. The production is elegant and concurrently futuristic and nostalgic. The pair borrow elements from eclectic styles ranging from 80s hip hop (see the entirely unironic orchestra hits on ‘I Believe’) to Russian folk (see balalaika on ‘Hopedrunk Everasking’) to dembow (see the bounciness of ‘Bunny is a Rider’). The sound is maximalist, unique, and decisively genre-defying. 

It might sound like Desire is trying to do a bit too much. After all, how can you be in a jungle, at a volcano, and soaring through the air in the space of one album and still have a cohesive, tight body of work? Perhaps the answer is that cohesion is overrated, as emulated in the sprawling, stream-of-consciousness favourite ‘Pretty in Possible’. Regardless, the unsung hero (haha) of the record’s unity is Polachek’s incredible voice. She has a remarkable ability to alter her vocal timbre from smoky, to diaphanous, to silky and everywhere in between. It is her defining instrument, undoubtedly the envy of many a singer, and she wields it with genuinely experimental intent. It blends into the percussive layers of her tracks as she luxuriates over the non-syllabic oos, aahs and naahs. There is not a single song on the album without some kind of non-lyrical vocal, whether the yearning howl at the moon on ‘Hopedrunk Everasking’, the irresistible siren’s melody following the invitation to “ride away" on ‘Sunset’, or the transcendent swelling harmonies on ‘Butterfly Net’.

In writing this review I have tattooed this album onto my brain. I have probably listened to it at least 10 times in full and yet I am forever itching to go again. It is appropriately accompanied by some interpretive dancing from the privacy of your own bedroom, or for the world to see if you are so inclined. A strut to your shitty job would be beautifully soundtracked by ‘Welcome to My Island’, ‘Smoke’ is my pick for feeling your true diva fantasy and ‘Blood and Butter’ deserves to be listened to with good headphones to appreciate its wubby panning.

If you’re reading this that’s cool – thanks <3 – but try to approach this album with an open mind. It’s Caroline’s Island, but it’s yours too.

Until the next,

88

Isobel Barry

19 October 2023