There is a certain cultural trend that has arisen around desire and its discovery. Excellent desire writer Annie Ernaux has just won the Nobel; Lo que hay, an autofiction about mourning and desire by Sara Torres, was the hit of the summer’s editorial; One of the most famous bots on Twitter is Fragments of a love talk, the theoretical cornerstone of desire, and even Ti West delivered us in 2022 X: a horror, yes, but about pure desire.
Caroline Polachek sharply captures this feeling on her new album Desire, I want to return you and expertly brings it to her own background. It could never be said better. Welcome to my man, the opening track and the perfect tribute to ’80s pop music, literally invites you to enter an earthly paradise of palm trees and crystal waters, crimson sunsets and smoke-capped volcanoes. From that moment on, the entire album moves in tension between earthly and spiritual, digital and analog sounds, images of this imaginary and fiery island, angels who shy away from any representation (precious ballad-Badalamenti, Rough drawing). angel), loves like sunsets (Sunset is the beautiful island of our century, and I can’t think of a better compliment than that) and songs to immortality (I believe). And if desire isn’t exactly what’s between the real and the imaginary, if it’s not just the idea we have of the desired person as well as what is?
embrace the unknown
Here Polachek desires not one thing, but to be Desire itself, all desires at once. And to do that, she immerses herself in all aspects of pop to finally surpass it. We have 90’s sounds like Massive Attack, bagpipe, Grimes and Dido a success! But above all, we definitely have an original artist. Because this is Enya, this is Björk, this is Imogen Heap, and it’s also none of those. Danny L. Harle’s co-production is, as always, impeccable and in the talented hands of two of pop’s most avant-garde pioneers, we find ourselves in front of a record that finds its voice naturally embracing the unknown.
angel choir
If the album began by taking us to an island of reddish earth and gradually progressed to the more spiritual (one of the best tracks, Smoke, where what is wanted is as volatile as the smoke of a volcano), if it closes, on the other hand, with an almost angelic chorus of billions, gradually dwindling until it completely disappears. It’s definitely entrenched in a divine hymn that sings “I’ve never felt so close to you” between whispers. The object of desire is, by definition, always unattainable. And that is exactly why we will continue to desire it forever.