Caroline Polachek has yet to start a theater show. The indie pop favorite from New York released her new album on Friday evening in Paradiso in Amsterdam Desire, I Want To Turn Into You decided at a good time to explain in great detail a dream she had years ago. That she fell out of a plane, thought she was going to die, turned out to have a parachute after all but, oh oh, blew out to the open sea, not then and, well… a way too long and bizarre story that ended with: gosh, how beautiful life is.
Polachek relies more on her flexible vocal cords, which she showed fabulously strong. It was counting octaves, always a little higher than seemed feasible and with an unlikely calm. Those who knew where the difficult shots were, sometimes held their breath, like with the very beautifully subdued ‘Crude Drawing of an Angel’, which had more depth and structure here than on the new album.
Also read the review of the album Desire, I Want To Turn Into You
Hype silver plated
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 Bang (2019), like the title track and the strange ‘Door’, which she brought a lot more intense (no less strange) live. But it was the material from that new album – five balls in this newspaper – 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, ‘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. There is little on earth that sounds quite like Caroline Polachek.