Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek Shares New Solo Album: Listen

In December, Chairlift broke up. “Patrick will be going on to produce records full-time, and Caroline to make music as a solo artist,” they said in a note. Here’s Caroline Polachek’s first solo music post-breakup: a new instrumental album called Drawing The Target Around The Arrow, which she shared via the Creative Independent. Download it for free here. The album is released under her initials, CEP.

In April, Chairlift will play their final shows, including stops in California, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and New York. Their last album was 2016’s Moth. Polachek, who previously made music under the name Ramona Lisa, is also planning to play CEP songs live, according to the Creative Independent interview. She added,  “I’m also knee-deep into the next record that I’m working on, which is a vocal record. In a way, this record feels like an intermission, like a bit of a silence between these two other periods.” 

Talking about the decision to make music without vocals, Polachek said:

I was compelled by how functional it was and it felt strange to me that I’d never really looked at music that way before. I’d always approached music as being a narrative or being aesthetic or having meaning by way of reference or being political, and I’d never looked at it just so cleanly as, “This is useful.” That was very exciting to me.

Naturally I did want to experiment with putting vocals on it because that’s sort of what I do. I tried half the record with vocals on it. I actually recorded it and I realized the whole thing falls apart once you put vocals on it. It becomes distracting. For me, it takes the pleasure out of it because I’m suddenly hearing myself. It loses its conceptual purity.

Check out the full interview, where she also shares some “Things I wish I’d known as a young musician,” here.

Watch Chairlift’s episode of “Over/Under” on Pitchfork.tv:

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