Caroline Polachek opens this album with a vast, extraordinary wail. It’s the kind of vocal cartwheeling that you might more commonly expect from a blockbuster diva in the Celine or Mariah mould.
This New York-born musician has an indie background and a tendency towards the chaotic and experimental, but after dipping a toe in the mainstream from time to time over a long career, this grandstanding collection sounds like her big moment.
She’s now 37, but you may have come across her before. This is her second album released under her own name, but the seventh overall. With her indie synthpop duo Chairlift, she provided the theme song for an iPod advert in 2008, the incredibly twee Bruises.
There have been less accessible solo albums under the names Ramona Lisa and CEP, and duets with her fellow chart pop infiltrators Charli XCX and Christine and The Queens. Then she had a TikTok moment with her slick dance-pop number So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings, and supported Dua Lipa on an arena tour.
“Welcome to my island,” she sings on the song of that name, indicating a separation from those around her. “Hope you like me, you ain’t leaving.” But there are comparisons to be made. Like Lady Gaga or early Björk, she’s a clear musical eccentric who seems capable of dragging the pop world towards her way of thinking rather than meeting it in the middle.
Like Self Esteem, she’s showing that the most interesting pop music comes from women who’ve lived a bit more, and like Rina Sawayama, she takes a maximalist approach here that frequently leaves the listener wondering what just happened.
There’s meandering flamenco guitar and high, cooing voices on Sunset. Blood and Butter is a classy ballad that might resemble the Nineties pop of All Saints until the bagpipe solo arrives. There’s whistling and a giggling baby on the sparse, wiry single Bunny is a Rider, while Billions wraps things up by adding a children’s choir and more than likely a kitchen sink to the mix.
It’s been produced with Danny L Harle, part of the PC Music collective that is having an increasing influence on the sound of the charts. The racing hyperpop of Fly to You, featuring Grimes and Dido, is a highlight covered in his fingerprints.
Strange, beautiful, with a surprise around every corner, this is an island worthy of a lengthy stay.
