Previously a Waxx Lyrical Record Of The Month from April 2024.
Arguably the album of 2023, Caroline Polachek's Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is more than an album to these ears at Waxx Lyrical, it's a transformative pop experience from start to finish. Pop auteur, emotional philosopher and hopeless romantic, 2023 was undoubtedly her year. This persuasive force and virtuosic album dropped on Valentine's Day and instantly solidified her place as one of the most remarkable and diverse musicians after 15 years of making sophisticated pop music, first as a part of NYC indie outfit, Chairlift, and then as a solo artist. She is a marvel, transcending genre and time, owning and incorporating so many influences; it shouldn't work, but it does. An older soul with a playful outlook, she describes her own sound as art pop, alternative pop, and new age, but any pair of decent ears will tell you it incorporates elements of electronic, rock, rave, and trip-hop. As Richard Kingsmill wrote before his departure, naming it Double J's album of the year: "there are small touches of Harle's hyper PC past, but also echoes of Madonna's work with William Orbit ('Blood and Butter'), trip-hop ('Pretty In Possible'), breakbeat ('Smoke'), Kate Bush ('Billions'), and even straight up flamenco ('Sunset')." But what sets her apart from the pop pack - commercial, alternative, or otherwise - is her voice, a remarkable instrument unto itself; it's one of the most incredible, unflinching of our time. Desire... is an album to be reckoned with, as is Polachek overall as a talent sonically, visually, and spiritually. It's safe to say that this is Polachek's island; we're just living on it.
TRACKS:
- Welcome To My Island
- Pretty In Possible
- Bunny Is A Rider
- Sunset
- Crude Drawing Of An Angel
- Blood And Butter
- I Believe
- Fly To You (feat. Grimes and Dido)
- Hopedrunk Everasking
- Butterfly Net
- Smoke
- Billions
