Listen to Caroline Polachek's ace first single since her debut album, Bunny Is A Rider

Header image by Nedda Asfari.

In 2019, Caroline Polachek released one of the year's most daring and brilliant pop albums.

The album - titled Pang - was her debut under her own name, but it was built from years of musicianship that in the two decades prior, had seen Caroline Polachek blossom into one of pop music's most enchanting songwriters. Whether it's as one-half of Chairlift (the beloved, now-defunct Brooklyn indie group), a songwriter working alongside Beyoncé, Charli XCX and Blood Orange, or under one of the many solo aliases she's used over the years (the self-titled one being her third, judging by our count), Caroline Polachek has left an immeasurable imprint on pop music, and Pang proved that; defined it even, in a way.

In the two years since Pang, Caroline Polachek has continued to explore the evolution of her craft; the fleeting drops of new music through the process of doing so being amongst the best stuff she's ever put out, regardless of project. She remixed Hayley Williams' down-tempo Simmer into something near-magical, remixed A.G. Cook's experimentalist dream Oh Yeah, and perhaps most notably, released an aching cover of The Coors' Breathless, an infamous and uncharted song that brought acclaim to Caroline Polachek after its live, TV performances.

Now, however, we're getting what's perhaps the most acute form of Caroline Polachek's evolution since Pang, in the form of Bunny Is A Rider, a new single making its debut today. It's the first original Caroline Polachek single since the release of Pang, and it's an evolution on the twisted wonderland of the album, and the warped sonics that charaded an intimate and honest search for fulfilment. Bunny Is A Rider continues that; an off-kilter soundscape uplifted by co-producer Danny L Harle capturing a more upbeat edge to Caroline Polachek's lyricism, but not without the thought that's become so synonymous to the musician over her career.

"Bunny Is A Rider is a summer jam about being unavailable," she says on the single. "Bunny is slippery, impossible to get ahold of. Maybe it’s a fantasy, maybe it’s a bad attitude. But anyone can be bunny, at least for three minutes and seventeen seconds. The song features a scorching bass performance from producer Danny L Harle, plus his baby daughter’s first vocal cameo."

If you're waiting for more Caroline Polachek, however, then chances are you might be waiting a little longer. On a BBC 1 Radio interview accompanying the single's premiere, she teased a music video arriving for the single, but by the sounds of it, her long-awaited follow-up to Pang is still being worked on; the final touches being made over in LA.

In the meantime, however, Bunny Is A Rider is sure to fill the hole in your psyche, and you can take a listen to it below:

Follow Caroline Polachek: FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM