Caroline Polachek - Welcome to My Island + Desire... (album 2)

That's BRILLIANT. I've never really known anyone like her. She seems part obscure underground banshee, part commercial pop queen. But never really either. She's in her own lane. Here for this campaign.
 
Desire, I Want to Turn Into You out Feb 14th

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:disco:
I only just clocked - is this a Bakerloo line train? :D
 
Gross title disgusting title but this is a bright and breezy Highland BOP!
 
This has been played on a loop most of the day here, I'm obsessed.

I'm particularly taken by the elements that sound like they've been lifted from the Spyro the Dragon soundtrack :disco: :disco: :disco:
 
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OUT NOW

I Believe and Fly to You are great. some of the other new stuff feels a bit more challenging
 
Also inspired by the work of Celine Dion.

 
I Believe is everything this morning. am I the only one getting Daniel Bedingfield vibes on some of these tracks
 
that one song of his wasn't too bad. they just used some of the same buttons is all I am saying
 
'Hopedrunk Everasking' feels very POIGNANT.

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'Hopedrunk Everasking' feels very POIGNANT.

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I'm struggling with a few tracks like that one, Angel and Pretty In Possible. or I just keep going back to the catchy ones I know and love.

Pang wasn't a listen in full experience for me either. as an artist though she's killing it.
 
I'm struggling with a few tracks like that one, Angel and Pretty In Possible. or I just keep going back to the catchy ones I know and love.

Pang wasn't a listen in full experience for me either. as an artist though she's killing it.

I love all three of those tracks but they weren't instant at all, whereas 'I Believe' and the singles mostly were. '... Angel' has quite an eerie vibe about it.
 
I saw her at the weekend. sadly I was 20 minutes late and missed Bunny, Island and Sunset (!!!), but she was fantastic. the voice! :disco: because of the aforementioned tragedy my highlights were Pang, Door (utterly incredible) and So Hot.

the crowd was diverse and universally ADORING. at moments it was just her voice floating over a synth or an echo, the wind machine doing its thing, light reflecting through the stained glass windows of Paradiso... it felt spiritual. she was in serious command. she also gave a dramatic retelling of a clearly entirely fictional "dream" she had that inspired Parachute which lasted about 5 minutes and I don't think anyone in the venue dared exhale in that time. :D

The reception in Amsterdam said a lot about the hype surrounding the tall Polachek, dressed in a crop top and largely transparent cycling shorts: opening song 'Welcome To My Island' was already sung so full that you wouldn't think it had only been out a week (well, the single was out a few months earlier, but still). There was a crackling chemical reaction between Polachek and the audience, and that while on stage - although very charismatic - she also had something aloof, with her steely looks and the somewhat rehearsed movements. Towards the end, that stiff shell broke open for a moment, when the light came on briefly, she took a good look at her audience and was moved.

She filled a third of the evening with songs from her first album Pang (2019), such as the title track and the strange 'Door', which she performed a lot more intensely live (no less strange). But it was the material from that new album – five balls in this newspaper (:D) – with which Polachek capitalized on the buzzing hype. Such as the rhythmically clever 'Sunset', where her brought guitarist could shine, the pleasantly bouncing 'Bunny is a Rider' and also 'Fly To You', a song she sings on the album with Grimes and Dido, which now sounded with Paradiso as an additional voice.

She sang the song that accompanied the cumbersome dream narration (:eyes:), 'Parachute', bathed in smoke and echoed beautifully by the way. She kept it very small and delicate, accurately directing her voice to all angles she wanted without losing power. "Go on, take me, I'm not afraid to drown", it sounded in inimitable inflections. It almost had something religious, but then an alien variant. (:disco:) There is little on earth that sounds quite like Caroline Polachek.
 
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This is what gets on my nerves - I don't like hearing too much of an album before buying it; it spoils it for me. I certainly don't like hearing the whole thing. So here I am: I LOVED Pang and I won't hear this album until the physicals hit the shops in about 7 weeks. GAH!
 
This is what gets on my nerves - I don't like hearing too much of an album before buying it; it spoils it for me. I certainly don't like hearing the whole thing. So here I am: I LOVED Pang and I won't hear this album until the physicals hit the shops in about 7 weeks. GAH!

You have MUCH to look forward to :disco:
 
I can't quite believe that I Believe and Smoke HAVEN'T been singles, truly a stacked album. Just pop smash after pop SMASH.

My favourite changes every day. Welcome To My Island and Blood And Butter are career peaks, Hopedrunk Everasking is an amazing Cocteau Twins tribute, and Sunset is going to sound EVEN BETTER once Summer comes around.
I actually struggle a bit with Bunny and Billions as part of the tracklist, perhaps just because they are TOO FAMILIAR in comparison to the new songs.

I add these to my tracklist too, to SUPERSIZE the experience:
George Daniel/Charli XCX remix of Welcome To My Island, which is basically a NEW SONG (and has been a QUEER RAVE SMASH so far this year):


Flume - Sirens (Polachek goes ETHEREAL DACE SMASH. I have been known to ascend if in the right headspace):


Last Days (an opera cooldown? WHY NOT!!)
 

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