Review and critique of 'Desire, I Want To Turn Into You'- Including 'an anecdote in Huancayo'.
Music is always with us. In my first post for Substack, I recommend Caroline Polachek's latest album and tell you a couple of amusing anecdotes I had listening to it.
Desire, I wanna turn into you', the fourth album by American soprano singer Caroline Polachek released on 14 February 2023, played in my headphones in two different situations while I was working as a police journalist in Huancayo, a city in the central highlands of Peru, an eight-hour drive from the capital. The first was while investigating the murder of Ricardo Quispe Castro, a longshoreman who made his living moving potatoes in the main market.
On that occasion, I was sent to a street unreachable on Google Maps. I still didn't know the city very well, so arrived at the scene relatively late, after getting lost a few times.
It was a narrow street that few people crossed around during the day; according to neighbors, crime was very usial. Police were patrolling the area and an expert was collecting samples from a pool of blood on the floor in front of a building where the murder had taken place. Apparently, he had been stabbed in the back while walking down the street; due to a possible "settling of scores".
While I was questioning the witnesses, my boss sent me a message with the idea of looking for security cameras near the place.
Luckily for me, there were two pointing right towards the entrance of the building in front of where the murder took place. Neighbors pointed out that access to them was a block away.
I approached and asked for permission to access the cameras; however, the cops were already checking the computer inside.
I was new in town and didn't have much experience dealing with police, nor the influence to convince them to leave me investigate free, so they sent me to fuck off.
I waited outside while they finished watching the recording. Then, I remembered that a lot of people had been talking about this new album Desire, I wanna turn into you, Caroline Polachek's latest. I, pacient, put on my pair of headphones and entered the mystical atmosphere generated by this artwork.
Polachek was born in 1985 and grew up in the state of Connecticut in the United States. In 2005, she started a pop group called Chairlift with a partner who loved music as much as she did, and another one who joined months later.
They produced three albums with relative success and disbanded in 2017, due to the members' desire to explore different musical projects.
To explore more about the group's history, I recommend watching this video:
Polachek then went solo and released her first two albums: 'Arcadia', which she wrote while living in Rome; and 'Drawing the Target Around The Arrow', entirely instrumental, categorized in the ambient genre. I haven't had a chance to listen to these yet, but they don't seem to have stood out much.
The opposite case was with, Pang, her third project, which she released in 2019 working for the first time alongside Danny L Harle, producer of the PC Music collective, a group of artists who experiment with pop by adding super-produced aesthetic sounds.
An example of the PC Music aesthetic is Chary XCX's mixtape 'Pop 2' —which I consider a masterpiece and I may talk about it some other time— on which I also heard Polachek for the first time, as she used her scream as a tone for the song.
Unlike her previous two albums, Pang was a hit and received critical acclaim.
I did listen to it and I think it's an amazing album because of two factors. First is that Polachek knew how to exploit her very high vocal range and technique in many of the songs. And second is that the production experiments with this voice to create unique sonorities.
To more clarity, I would like you to listen to Hit Me Where it Hurts, the fourth song on the album.
During the verses, you can hear a group of screams apart from the main voice and, in the final bridge, a very high-pitched scream, in a tone that few singers reach. These sounds are not used as the main element of the song, but as an accompaniment and a way to generate emotion; as in the previous song with Charli XCX. This style makes Polachek's songs unique and became a hallmark for her next project.
Another aspect also worth highlighting is that, despite the experimentation, the production does not leave aside the goal of generating pop music with catchy melodies and simple but effective messages.
Although this last point is also my main complaint: although hearing this project for the first time was a pleasant experience, listening to it carefully leaves me thinking that, in many occasions, there are empty lyrics and shallow messages.
It reminds me of Taylor Swift's or Lady Gaga's first projects: incredible pop development and catchy melodies, but cliché themes and lyric that always falls back to the same place.
It's just not my style. I don't think it's bad either, there is an audience that prefers them. In addition, both artists later released projects with deeper messages: Evermore and Joanne.
Polachek knew how to remedy these mistakes in Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, her last album; and she also made the most of those two factors I explained paragraphs above... but right now let's go back to the market where the murder happened.
After about half an hour watching the street and listening to headphones, my boss asked me to go back to the office.
The cops hadn't left yet, but I had already spent too much time on that commission and in the news hours are precious, so we agreed to work with what we had.
In the end, we took the note focusing on how close the place was to a Puesto de Auxilio Rápido (quick action post), a small house with three policemen in charge, and their response to the event.
The second time the album accompanied me was about a month later, when a woman gave birth in the middle of a street, and I was sent to find images.
I don't quite remember what I was thinking when I left the office, but for some reason I played that same album. Who knew I would ever experience a situation similar to that one at the market again.
At the scene, witnesses told me that the pregnant woman was walking calmly when she felt a strong pain that forced her to sit on a sidewalk and, after a few minutes, she gave birth assisted by a policewoman. The story was incredible, but the images were missing. Then, it occurred to me to check with the administration of a small market whose cameras might have recorded the incident.
I spoke to the manager and her son, who indeed had the record and let me access it. I recorded it with the camera of my smartphone and rushed back to the office. There, we edited and uploaded it.
As fate would have it, both situations had a similarity: a connection to security cameras. This was not premeditated, but rather pure chance, just as the same album pick.
I think that music is more than a sound product to be appreciated for the technical skill of its authors, the catchy melodies or the message of its lyrics; it has the particular characteristic of being able to be enjoyed at any time and place, so for many of us it is also a kind of companion.
Javier Echecopar, a renowned Peruvian musician and researcher, recounted in the book ‘La Música del Perú’ that he was once playing Andean music on his guitar in the department of Ayacucho when he Cuchi Kaqlla, one of the best violinists in the region, approached. Instead of pointing out Echecopar's interpretation, the virtuoso told him that this melody was one of his childhood favorites.
This is the most powerful characteristic of music: when you listen to certain meaningful compositions, you are transported to the moments in which they have accompanied you.
In my case, this album transports me to these two moments of emotion and a lot of tension.
Desire, I Want To Turn Into You is a big disk, where Polachek makes the most of those two strengths I explained earlier.
For example, the first song, 'Welcome to my island', opens with a stunning scream from Polachek that, I remember, gave me the creeps when I heard it for the first time. While in the fourth, 'Sunset' —my personal favorite—, there is an entire passage where her vocalization takes the stage as if it were a guitar solo.
Sunset is my favorite because of it’s clear message, exciting melody and Polachek’s melismas; but there is one more reason: the timbre of the Spanish guitar that phrases a flamenco-like motif.
Much of the music of my country Peru, especially the 'música criolla' —which some authors are preferring to call ‘música costera’—, was born from Spanish music; and hearing this kind of motif causes in me nostalgia of my grandmother's house, where the speaker always was playing some waltzes and boleros by prodigious guitarists accompanying incredible singers like Oscar Aviles or "Zambo" Cavero.
Returning to Polachek, in this album the search for a psychedelic essence seems to prevail, since she uses strange sounds and repeats passages (the lyrics) in many occasions, although without moving away from the usual pop melodies —the same happened in Pang, but the search for pop melody there prevailed more and psychedelia was a minor objective—.
Besides, the lyrics of some songs explore concepts without giving them clarity or sense, as it happens in Bunny is a Rider (Bunny is a rider / Satellite can't find her / No sympathy / Ain't nothing for free), in which the rabbit is supposed to represent a “being that does not want to be found”; or in Smoke (It's just smoke / floating over the volcano / It's just smoke / Go on, you know I can't say no); in which the smoke and the volcano represent passion. This is great because it leaves a lot to the listener's imagination.
As for my problem with the previous album for its shallow messages, I notice an improvement.
Songs like Butterfly Net and Sunset use Polachek's vocalizations to represent the emotions they talk about in the lyrics; while several of the other songs, while searching for that psychedelic essence, don't seek to tell many details either, they say enough.
And as for the empty lyrics, songs like Welcome to my island and ‘I Belive’ deal with very personal issues of the singer-songwriter. The first one talks about the relationship she had with her father and the second one about her close friend SOPHIE, a singer who passed away in 2021.
Critique
The album is great. The enveloping psychedelic sounds and confusing lyrics invite you to step out of reality and create your own interpretation, while Polachek's powerful vocals guide you through a rollercoaster of emotions.
She also has a very particular style in which she lends her voice as an accompanying tune, which sets her apart from other artists in the pop genre.
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Thanks for making it this far. Let's talk about the album. Give it a listen and leave your thoughts in the comments, I'll be reading them all.