Caroline Polachek's New Album Redefines Hyperpop
Just yesterday – the day we announced Caroline Polachek’s performance at Pohoda 2023 – the American singer and producer (with roots in Slovakia, by the way) released her second solo album “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You“. And we are glad that the response from music reviewers, critics and fans alike exceeded probably all expectations. DIY Magazine, Evening Standard, PopMatters and Dork gave the album a full 100 points, and the overall critics' score on albumoftheyear.org reached 90 points.
15. February 2023
Few artists have experienced such a meteoric rise in recent years as Caroline Polachek. She was the singer and frontwoman of Chairlift (which disbanded in 2017), she wrote songs for Beyoncé and Travis Scott and released several solo albums under alter-egos, only to later show the world her star power under her real name. Her debut album “Pang“ (2019) changed the way hyperpop was viewed, but her latest album completely redefines it.
PopMatters Magazin: “Caroline Polachek redefines hyperpop on passionate new album.”
The album “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You“ contains 12 songs in which Caroline does things on her second effort that most artists never dream of achieving – wrote The Line of Best Fit, one of the world's largest independent music magazines. They even called her “one of the most innovative artists today”.
CLASH music: “Despite only being February, Caroline Polachek has set a serious precedent for any pop releases that follow it this year.”
The new album opens with the aptly titled song “Welcome To My Island“ which serves (not only) as an invitation to listen to the whole record. The opening track features her signature falsetto, which is so euphoric that it resembles an orgasm (although the similarity is intentional). In addition to the original version, there are already two official remixes. The first one was created by Charli XCX together with George Daniel of the band The 1975 while the second remix was made by the band PVA, who will also perform at Pohoda 2023.
Although Caroline is known for her many collaborations with world-famous artists such as Flume, Charlie XCX, SBTRKT, Dealorean or Blood Orange, on her second solo album she appears almost exclusively on her own. The exception is the seventh song, Fly To You, which features vocals from Dido and Grimes.
DIY Magazine: “You’ll be hard pushed to find an album that sounds anything like ‘Desire, I Want To Turn Into You’.”
Throughout the album, Caroline Polachek and co-producer Danny L. Harle continually color the tunes with atypical sounds and instruments that don't make sense on paper until you hear them. Her voice is still at the core of the music, but you can hear the combination of bagpipes with the sound of a smoke detector, Spanish guitar and church bells, a children's choir and organ beats. Caroline also plays with genres on the album. It is contemporary artistic pop, which is successfully complemented by genres such as trip-hop, drum and bass, trance, industrial disco, but also flamenco or even Celtic folk. In some songs you can even find Japanese musical influence or Brazilian rhythms (“Sunset“).
Magazín Hypebeast: “Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is one of the future classics.”
Her new album confirms that she is an emotional philosopher, a hopeless romantic, and one of the most important artists currently defining the new direction of pop. If you want a historical comparison, we dare to say that this is the Kate Bush of today’s Gen Z. So definitely don't miss her concert at Pohoda 2023. In the meantime, listen to her new album, which will captivate you as much as it captivated us, and you'll find yourself listening to it over and over again:
Caroline Polachek, foto: Aidan Zamiri
Caroline Polachek, foto: Nedda Afsari