Antonia Fusco

Album cover of Caroline Polachek’s *Desire, I Want To Turn Into You* (Image Credit: Pitchfork)

Desire is a flame that burns through us all; the restless yearning to possess or attain something or someone drives us. Whether it is base, emotional or success-driven desires – Caroline Polachek’s new album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You plunges into the unexplored depths of desires. Thematically, she locates her desire in the framework of her island, Ithaca-like - but also one that exists on both a concrete locational place of Italy and a metaphysical one. The album art portrays her odyssey to escape the mundane reality of the subway into the paradisiacal promise of otherworldly desires. During the 2020 pandemic, she relocated to Italy, staying at an Airbnb at the base of Mount Etna. She observed the red lava “glow[ed] for miles and miles against the night sky; it felt like the most beautiful visual metaphor for what I was going through – feeling this explication, wordless, faceless, tectonic, chaotic energy coming up from below.” The metaphorical volcano persists throughout the album; it is a perfect elemental display of the volatile and enlivening energy of desire.

Polachek and her long-time producer Danny L. Harle produced the album under the label Perpetual Novice. Her previous 2019 album Pang, delves into desire too, but a desire that is out of reach. Desire unlocks the liminality of Pang with its blockages of liminal spaces, such as the song ‘Door’ forever entrapped with the insistent doors. Desire frees Polachek into a more open exploration of her repressed desires.

We are immediately welcomed and informed that we are on Polachek’s island with the album's opener, ‘Welcome To My Island’. A radio-ready pop song, which Polachek finds to be her “brattiest pop song” as it alternates from her classical singing to rapping. It is her most pop-y song on the record, which is intentional as it discusses her father’s death from COVID-related complications. He felt disdain for her pop style and had never seen her perform live. As she raps, “He says watch your ego, watch your head girl”, she mocks his criticism of the egotistical nature of pop and herself. The song resides upon her ego death; as with her father passing, she faces a new self-conceptualisation, which she calls “simmering your ego, not getting out of your head and spiralling.”

‘Pretty in Possible’ is a play on words on beauty being impossible. Lyrically it speaks of abstractions of grief and spiralling out of control. The reference to mayflies on the swimming pool speaks of the shortness of temporality as they only last a day. With the opposing soundscape of the blissful echo chamber of trip-hop, Frou Frou and Suzanne Vega’s ‘Tom Diner’ - Caroline uses the sonic form as an escape, furthered with the reverb of “da-da-da-da.” The desire to escape discomfort is prevalent.

The warm climate is felt throughout the record through references to elemental sensuality and tropical melodies. ‘Bunny Is a Rider’ is a playful summer anthem of female asexuality, as she sings “I am so non-physical.” Polachek doesn’t feel tied to a physical place, whether bodily or locationally. Just as she defines the island as her own, she describes the rules around her sexuality as she vocalises, “I do feel like a lady.” Female desire is devised through the female gaze of her sexuality rather than the male gaze. ‘Sunset’ is similar sonically but draws more from reggaetón and sounds like a Romani folk melody. Disassociation from the body is present here, too, as she sings, “I wear my body like an invited guest.” The ending feels like a Spaghetti Western, capturing her falsified idealism of the desire for a better place.

Polachek, throughout her catalogue, blends the archaic and modern seamlessly. ‘Crude Drawing of an Angel’ does this, embodying a tortured artist's trope. Akin to Gothic literature with the predatorial sexuality, violence, angels and art. Similarly to Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Polachek doesn’t want to be faced with her portrait, bearing the revelation of her soul from a lover’s perspective. The intro is like Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’, with its sparsity and slow pace. Polachek’s opening uses water droplets, enhancing her Gothic aural environment.

‘I Believe’ is a 90s European pop song in flamenco-pop and UK garage style. It is dedicated to the late singer SOPHIE and stands out for its retro yet incredibly contemporary feel. The cerebral synths juxtapose the theme of immortality but also tie together the volcanic motif, as she warns, “Look over the edge, but not too far.” Desire as a force is a vessel to be traversed, but if probed too far – it can explode, and you can get burnt out by your passion.

By the end of the album, Polachek has not turned into her desires - but instead has discovered new ones and discarded old ones.

Antonia Fusco is a Culture columnist at The Scoop and an English student at Queen’s University Belfast

Monthly Music Column: "Desire, I Want to Turn Into You" by Caroline Polachek Review