- If you've ever listened to Patrick Wolf, then Kelley Polar's new album will immediately strike a chord with you. Not only are both musicians intelligent, idiosyncratic, ginger, and very talented, but both have created their own magical fairytale world they want you to get lost in. In Polar's case we're talking space, or the 'deepest part of the ocean', or an unspecified cosmic location where one can swim in other beings' atmospheres. On his first album Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens Polar, who used to do the string arrangements for Environ labelmates Metro Area, married this vision with airy grooves that seemed to flutter along on a finger click or single circling hi-hat. Those are still present, but I Need… marks a change of emphasis away from them. This, his second album, is a coming out party, if you will, from the shadow of Metro Area to the music that you can't help but feel is closer to his heart.
To that end, the recurring feeling on I Need… is exaltation. The second song, 'Zeno of Elea' is his first attempt at a beatless arrangement and really sets the tone. It's about a guy jumping off a bridge thinking he'll be saved by Zeno's Paradox, the idea that a person will continually halve the distance between them and an object, and never reach it (remember I said intelligent and idiosyncratic earlier). Sonically, this translates as a cute synth line that gets increasingly complex and filled in whilst angelic vocals and soft tones reach a crescendo around it. It's about raising you up, making the hairs on your neck stand up and inducing marvel in the listener. Similar tricks are used throughout, notably on ‘A Dream in Three Parts (On Themes by Enesco)’. Throughout the album this effect is helped by almost ubiquitous use of the viola and classical nods, which really really do tug on your heart strings.
But despite all this, the odd thing about the album is that it is so pristine. Go to any Gospel church and raising the audience up isn't a neat process—people sweat, they sing, they shake, they get down to get up. With Polar, while you do definitely feel something, it is muted by a glassy synth pop distance. He has moved away from Metro Area beats, but he retains the same aesthetic of spacious grooves and retro futuristic disco feel. His vocals, meanwhile, feel timid—even when he's clearly singing as strongly as he can, as if serious emotion is a no-no. Human relations are clinical—at one point Polar talks about hanging out with his “faceless friends” if somebody makes him wait. This is music less about human interaction than about dreamlike imaginings: Polar seems less concerned with real people than flights of fancy such as exchanging energies or passing through the ether in the sky.
Polar has in the past said that his music is a relationship between his secular upbringing and the religious nature of the classical music he has studied. Without meaning to second guess the artist (but I'll have a go anyway), perhaps the tension is not so much between the secular and the religious as between the pop and paradise. Kelley Polar can take you there, but on I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling, 'there' isn't so far from here, even if it is a beautiful, mysterious and enchanting place.
Tracklist01 A Feeling of the All-Thing
02 Zeno of Elea
03 Entropy Reigns (In the Celestial City)
04 Chrysanthemum
05 Rosenband
06 Satellites
07 A Dream in Three Parts (On Themes by Enesco)
08 We Live in an Expanding Universe
09 Sea of Sine Waves
10 Thurston and Grisha
11 In Paradisum