Caroline Polachek

I saw her concert last night, it was quite an experience. George Clanton opened, a fun surprise, he's a mischievous scamp projecting L.A. stoner vibes. His set was more alt rock than I would have expected, almost like Deftones if they had chill synths instead of loud guitars, with a fun LED background flashing images of pot leafs, pentagrams, and Bowser from Mario.

Despite following Polachek since the Chairlift years, I was still caught by surprise at how DRAMATIC everything was. She played all the songs you'd expect, and they all had big dance moves throughout. The crowd was super intense, screaming and dancing along to every single song. I thought some of the more mid-tempo groovy numbers came across particularly well because the music gave her a bit more space, and the several of the slow atmospheric ballads put across a very strong Twin Peaks/Julee Cruise vibe. My only minor disappointment is that she didn't do any Chairlift songs, but I figured that would be the case.

There's definitely this uncanny valley thing going on with her voice, I was wondering throughout how much she was actually singing vs lipsyncing. I'm pretty sure she really was singing it all, but it's such a wild combination of super acrobatic, perfectly executed vocals through a mass of effects, that it's hard to believe it's real. I don't think I've ever heard someone in a big pop or rock concert sing with that level of skill before.

Also, I'm pretty sure the new album is the best thing she's done, it's amazing to see how ambitious she's gotten with her singing over the years. I don't think the earlier Chairlift albums really showed off her range, but maybe she's also just become more skillful over time.

This is a decent quality video of a recent show that's fairly identical to what I saw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onD5ycsuFy8

George Clanton opened

I saw the tour in Athens, Ga., on Saturday, and yeah, really dug it. We only caught the last few songs of George Clanton, but he was fun. Polachek's video projections and little bit of stage decoration did a good job of setting a bit of an otherworldly scene. "Welcome to My Island" was the logical set opener and very much gave off a Circe vibe, like she was casting a spell. The crowd was sold out and about what I expected, indie-hipster with strong queer component. People knew every word — not that hard when all the material came from two albums, I guess. I liked her stage persona, friendly but a little ethereal, and her arm choreography in particular was intricate and impressive. (My wife worried a bit about her skinniness, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that she's taking care of herself, she seems to have her act together pretty well.)

Good show.

A friend of mine tells me his daughter in an MFA program is complaining that "Caroline Polachek is all you ever hear" at art school these days, which tracks.

Re: The uncanny valley: many people in the comments of this interview losing their shit over the "vocal thing" that happens around 2:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj-XPN0Yj24

What are they saying? Don't feel like clicking.

She calls it "vocal flipping", almost sounds like a vocal getting chopped and pitched up in real time, or real time auto-tune, pretty crazy.

Feel like I need to ask somebody now. Will get back to you.

It sounds insane. Always thought there was a great deal of autotune in several of her vocal runs but now I’m not sure.

xp

Jordan explained exactly what she does, not sure why someone else would need to describe it

Um, are the ILX Doubting Thomas Police or would you like to be?

are you

I don't want to misquote Jordan, but my reading of what he wrote was he was describin what it sounded like, not what she was actually doing.

Anyway there is a whole thing about opera singing technique and how they really know how to turn on the vibrato iirc which is what I thought I heard her doing but I dunno.

whaaaaaaat

she says in the video she doesn't use a lot of opera techniques and the thing she does in the video for approximately one second is not an opera thing

watched it five times and still not really sure what's happening

I think I heard I saw you fry.

Moodles, are you an opera singer yourself?

no, I am merely telling you what she says in the video about 5 seconds before she does the thing that people were commenting on

I can't sing at all so I have no idea how she's doing what she's doing muscularly (tbh even using vibrato is somewhat magical to me), but it sounds really cool. It seems like it might be similar to a trumpet player doing lip slurs going between notes (at least in terms of the effect, different physical mechanism obviously).

Heh. I thought people where talking about the way she emphasized the word “sound” which was actually at the 2:30 mark, I didn’t even get to the autotune part.

All this time I also thought that's what you all were talking about, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_p657VvFww

After that finished playing I got an ad for Don Giovanni at the Met, DO U SEE?

Comments there say it is akin to yodeling.

Or sideways yodeling even.

She's flipping between her "head voice" and her "chest voice", which is exactly yodelling, she's just trained her head voice to be low-enough to be in the same range as her chest voice. It's not much different from what Dolores was doing in The Cranberries. It's pretty neat

https://iv1.lisimg.com/image/13860578/245full-madonna%3A-truth-or-dare-screenshot.jpg

It's not much different from what Dolores was doing in The Cranberries.

My wife has some musical theater training and this is exactly the reference point she used — "It's like in 'Zombie.'" (She also made the "head voice"/"chest voice" distinction.)

very cool

Do we have an existing thread for discussion of head voice, chest voice, vibrato, etc?

This maybe: Is there a word for the opposite of falsetto?

The opposite of falsetto is when you sing through your butt, I call it fartsetto

Thank you, Bart Simpson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XYyDsl14E4

3 songs live on KEXP. Such a good performer.

wow, she's in fine voice.

Her range as a singer has expanded dramatically since the Chairlift days

I fuckin' love this album.

"Bunny is a Rider" is ace.

Probably my AOTY

Wish there was no Grimes track tbh

i forgot she was on it actually. I'm still not as hot on this album as I was on Pang but it's pretty good.

https://x.com/carolineplz/status/1706815548724822407?s=20

Tiny Desk Concertt NPR performance. Great control of her voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmnZHQNN5cc

Wow, gotta say this is the most I've ever "gotten" CP, one of those times where the stripped down format really works.

The drummer is great, I knew him from his viral drum & bass instagram vids, and I'd love to know if he got the gig through that or if he's a working drummer who also happens to be big on social media.

Yeah amazing drummer and the stripped down setting makes her voice even more impressive.

yeah it really highlights just how incredible her voice is. it makes me want to hear her do a more acoustic or orchestral album

i also really like the keyboard making acoustic guitar sounds alongside the actual acoustic guitars, great combo

That gave me some early Dead Can Dance vibes

New song “Dang”, premiered via this excellent slide presentation on The Late Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UsIcDivsls