Her second album stands out as a glittering showcase for her encyclopedic musical data and formidable voice
Caroline Polachek is aware of her manner round a pop tune—she’s written for Beyoncé and Travis Scott, collaborated with next-wave artists like Charli XCX and PC Music, and toured with the likes of Dua Lipa. On her second solo album, the previous Chairlift vocalist makes use of her encyclopedic musical data and formidable voice as autos for flipping the idea of the “excellent pop tune” in sudden methods.
Need, I Need To Flip Into You opens with Polachek’s hovering soprano, which hovers within the air for just a few seconds earlier than narrowing into the extra insistent name that introduces “Welcome To My Island,” a thumping minimize by which Polachek veers between want-it-all brattitude and a sober reflection on her deceased father’s ideas on staying true to herself. Polachek excels at depicting the crush of ideas and emotions that the 2020s’ always-on cultural milieu can tease out musically and lyrically: “So many tales we had been informed a couple of security internet/However after I search for it, it’s only a hand that’s holding mine,” she muses on the quick-stepping “Sundown,” which contains the fleet strumming of Spanish guitarist Marc Lopez in addition to tense “hey!”s to depict the tense world that love can assist her escape.
Polachek’s music seems like a residing response to (and embodiment of) the overstimulation of contemporary occasions. The skeletal “Bunny Is A Rider” glides alongside on rootless-cosmopolitan power; “Fly To You” manages to stuff d’n’b beats, glittery synths, fluttering woodwinds, the velvet-voiced singer-songwriter Dido, and the synth scientist Grimes into an arresting four-minute capsule of the feelings surrounding a long-awaited reunion. When she does rein issues in a bit, the outcomes are much more beautiful. “Butterfly Internet” is a glowing ballad the place the slow-burn instrumentation, together with a drowsily performed classic organ, permits Polachek’s impassioned vocal to take middle stage; a youngsters’s choir is available in on the finish, however just for a minute, dashing any hope for catharsis in a manner that mirrors the frustration of the tune’s central metaphor of a butterfly internet “attempting to catch your mild.”
At occasions, Polachek’s data of pop appears virtually too well-deployed—the recurring “na-na-na”s and cracked-open-sky refrain of “Smoke” appear tailored to be reused by an advert for a brand new gum or relaunched financial-services app, and there are moments within the album’s center that make one marvel if Sting’s moody 2000 single “Desert Rose” is about to have a severe pop-cultural re-evaluation. However her curious spirit, in addition to her plain expertise as a vocalist and arranger, make Need, I Need To Flip Into You a kinetic instance of what occurs when pop units out to transcend its personal limits.
