I discovered more about where Polachek was born and her family history Their feature focused on her returning to gigs after a year or more away. The New Yorker profiled and interviewed Polachek last year. The former Charlift member has forged this amazing solo career. There is a lot more to explore when it comes to Caroline Polachek. I think things like fine art and cinema maybe don’t have as much to do with that, but are operating on potentially more important levels. 'Both fashion and music, especially as a teenager, helped give me so much meaning in life, and sense of identity, and what kind of adult I want to turn into, and what I cared about in the world. I feel like music does that for people as well, like ‘Who am I in the world? What are my values? What’s my thing? What’s my scene? Who are my people?’ 'What you put on during the day has so much to do with emotional survival-like how you can keep yourself spiritually intact and go about your day and create an identity for yourself. Now, I’m doing all those things in the same ball pit”.įashion and music helped build her identity. And with CEP, I just got to be a complete synth-nerd and create a framework for that kind of exploration of sonics. I think with Chairlift there was always this soulfulness and playfulness, especially in the sonics, but with RamonaLisa, I really got to flex more on my formalist, romantic side. 'I think it’s a fusion of a lot of different things that I’m interested in, and have always been interested in, but have kind of compartmentalized in the past. She’s become a personal mentor, kind of a godmother figure for me.'Īfter stripping her previous acts and stage names-Chairlift, Ramona Lisa, and CEP-Pang is more “her” than anything else Polachek has ever made. 'I’m like, ‘I still have my voice teacher’s number on my phone from when I was 14, let’s see if she still has my number.’ I called her up and I’ve been working with her again ever since.

So, I realize while I’m in the studio that if I take these songs on tour, I'm risking permanently damaging my voice. 'Fast forward 12 years, Chairlift is in the process of making our final record Moth, and there are these songs that are really pushing me and my high register like ‘ Ch-Ching ,’ where I’m belting and that’s not what my voice is built for. And I worked with this amazing woman named Pamela Kuhn, who had a much more radical approach than any of the choir teachers I had worked with up until that point. It made no sense, but you’d still have to prepare these arias, so I found a recommendation for a voice teacher who could help me. And these auditions, totally counter-intuitively, weren’t choral-style singing, they were opera. I was in seven music groups at one point, and I was also auditioning for these state choirs. 'When I was in high school, I was obsessed with singing. She’s working with the same operatic voice coach she had when she was 14 years old. When I got accepted to art school, Aaron dropped out of school and came with me.' Chairlift came with me when I went to New York. 'Chairlift started when I was at University of Colorado. I got straight As for two years, 4.2 GPA, and started from scratch at NYU. And as soon as I got there I realized I didn’t want to study either, and I wanted to study art, but the art department was terrible. 'I thought I wanted to go to school for either biology or classical voice and I could not decide which one, so I went to the University of Colorado, the only school in America that has great bio and opera departments. “ In the early 2000s, Caroline was still pursuing degrees in biology and classical voice. It is amazing reading about her previous life (in terms of her non-songwriting past) and where she has come from: Prior to that, Harper’s BAZAAR chatted with Polachek a couple of years ago. I shall come to a more fulsome exploration of her background soon. I will start out with a little bit about her background.

Before that, I want to work my way to it. I will come to her new track, Billions, in a minute (she actually released the audio for Long Road Home yesterday, but I might cover that another time). Everything she puts out leaves a lingering impression. The New York-born artist is one of the most interesting and talented in the world. I am not sure whether there is an album planned for this year. With the release of her latest album, Pang (2019), we received a wonderful album from a truly compelling artist. I last reviewed Caroline Polachek when her track, Insomnia, came out in 2019. I am spending some time with one of my favourite artists of the moment.

Long road home caroline polachek