Life and death, love and heartbreak, glory and the journey seeking it; Caroline Polachek, an indie-alternative pop artist with a uniquely enchanting voice and distinct production, explores an array of worldly, spiritual, and personal themes in her sophomore album “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You.” With 12 tracks, Polachek’s record has a total runtime of 45 minutes. Polachek released the deluxe version of this album, “Everasking Edition,” on Feb. 14, 2024, with an additional eight tracks.
Polachek, starting in the synth-pop duo she and Aaron Pfenning formed, has now become a solo artist. Her debut album “Pang” explores a similar sound and message to “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You,” but the latter pushes the boundaries exponentially more. Throughout this record, Polachek showcases her ethereal voice, elastic vocals, and sonically whimsical production of her music.
Opening the album with “Welcome To My Island,” Polachek introduces the listener to her psyche and the adventure her music will take them through. After a series of operatic falsetto and belt harmonies, she delivers an ominous message to the audience: “Welcome to my island / See the palm trees wave in the wind / Welcome to my island / Hope you like me, you ain’t leaving.” Polachek’s record is as much about loving herself as it is about loving others, and these lyrics reflect the sometimes inescapable yet intoxicating feeling of love and desire. The song makes periodic shifts between epic, echoey notes flowing through the song, and solid, assured statements. The intertwinement of these two polarizing techniques traces the inner voice of her head discouraging her, contrasted and ultimately overpowered by her high-pitch hopes and dreams that inspire her to not only chase her desires but do it so well that she becomes them.
“Pretty In Possible” is the first of many songs to explore a specific chaotic groove to the album. There is no cemented chorus or true order; the song flows through itself in a nonlinear manner independent from normal conventions of music. As suggested in the title, the meaning revolves around the consuming feeling of being in love that the potential of it becomes a drug, the ‘pretty’ that exists in the ‘possible.’ “Pretty In Possible” has lyrics and meaning that align with its production perfectly; the vocals and instruments exude a freeing, undisturbed, yet consuming feeling to the listener. Other tracks including “Bunny Is A Rider,” “Smoke,” and “Billions,” all fall into the same grooveless groove of a completely untethered and celestial composition. Polachek allows her vocals to pierce through the song directly into the ear of the audience.
Contrasting the previous unconventional technique, “Sunset” is the most true to the structure of pop with its traceable pattern and identifiable chorus. However, sonically, “Sunset” is vastly different than pop. Much like a medieval tavern musical number, “Sunset” channels staples of folk, Spanish, and Romani music. “Sunset” possesses movement and breathes life into the album. With lyrics like “Don’t look back / Let’s ride away” and “So no regrets / ’Cause you’re my sunset,” the song encapsulates a timeless tale of looking past the disillusionment and regret that worldly concerns dawn onto people to see the love that exists within life as to not take it for granted. “Sunset” is about finding time in a fast-paced world to ‘enjoy the sunset.’
Polachek explains in an interview for Spotify Storylines that the heart of the album exists within a string of three songs: “I Believe,” “Fly To You (feat. Grimes and Dido),” and “Blood And Butter.” Polachek meant for the section of the album to be something the listeners sail through. With drawbacks to her English-Scottish heritage, Polachek incorporates bagpipes to “connect the electronic backbone of the song with the sort of folk thematics embedded in [it].” These three tracks reflect the core theme of the album: love. In all of the senses and definitions of the word, “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You” is about love, whether it be for someone else, herself, things, or even experiences. All three songs explore the complex nature of love and how it can be felt and expressed.
Much like the enigmatic nature of the subject of the song, “Butterfly Net” is up to the interpretation of the listener. “Butterfly Net” revolves around the imagery of trying to catch light beams with a butterfly net. This complex and extended metaphor draws connections between a seemingly impossible task and the frustration of ‘catching’ remnants of a love that is ungrounded, or ‘uncatchable.’ The open meaning of the song comes into play regarding why that love is unbounded. Polachek sings with fervent, and the pain of this song flutters off the lyrics. The deluxe version of the album—the “Everasking Edition”—includes an alternate version of “Butterfly Net” featuring Weyes Blood, a wistful artist trademarked by her melancholy, folk-like vocals. “Butterfly Net” is a sorrowful ballad of the slow-burning pain of elusive love, and the airy vocals and graceful yet fragile instruments channel this exceptionally.
“Desire, I Want To Turn Into You: Everasking Edition” includes eight more tracks, all further pushing the boundaries of music Polachek continuously breaks. “Dang” channels Caroline Polachek’s inner ‘brat,’ with a production that draws on her history with electro hyper-pop artist Charli XCX. Other songs like “Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In The Mouth” and “Long Road Home” resemble the folk-styled production and free-flowing sound that the majority of the album possesses. “Meanwhile” and “Coma” stick out from the deluxe tracks for various reasons. “Meanwhile” is a spoken poem placed over a soft guitar strum and faint echoes of voices. “Coma” is a dynamic, dream-like song that continuously switches between slow and quiet beeps to fast-paced pop sounds.
With her enchanting operatic voice and mythological sound production, Polachek is like the siren of the music industry. She is blurring the lines between music conventions and bringing in unseen traits of music to the mainstream media. Drawing from various genres as well as incorporating Scotch-English ancestry and her unique touch, “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You” is an ethereal album that feels like a dream-like coma.
