Paris Paloma Delivers Dignified Discord in Debut Record ‘Cacophony’
Photo: Jennifer McCord
Paris Paloma’s much-anticipated album, Cacophony, is dignified discord in its musical components—sonically tumultuous with a touch of elegance. For fans of Paloma, that is what one has come to expect—a supreme attention to detail that makes each composition, though seemingly chaotic, swan-like in its grace. The opening track of the new record, “my mind (now),” with its fuzzed-out bass and screaming trumpets, provides the first evidence of this observation.
Paloma’s vocals ground the electric storm of the first track, providing a method to the madness and, in their lyrical honesty, triggering a soul squeeze and heart tug born from the aftermath of confusion—what did I do to make you so upset? In compositions like “his land,” Paloma lets the melancholy seep in; in tracks like “drywall,” alt-pop light leaks out.
One thing remains true, each song, regardless of its sonic shade, is heavy with themes of male-female duality, with the former under a microscope that reveals its darkest moments and most glaring flaws. It’s how “labour,” the album’s breakout single, came to prominence on social media, putting Paloma’s name in many ears and creating anticipation for this striking debut record.
The song is rhythmic, reflective, and rambunctious, stabbing a thematic knife into a patriarchal artery, bleeding out the pressures women face in most romantic relationships. If the subject matter hit a nerve online, it carried more than water since it brought an honest poet out of the shadows and into the sun of artistic prominence. The high point of the record is indisputably here, and all else feels like cherries on top.
Energetic songs like “as good a reason” are head-bobbing; slower tracks such as “last woman on earth” are cavernous, all dripping with raw emotion and relatable tragedies. The mission, set out by Paloma and producer Justin Glasco, is executed with scalpel-like precision, delivering a record that establishes Paloma’s sound and visceral honesty, creating a yearning for more to come.
One of the last tracks, “the warmth,” is a profound, drum-driven gallop that chases the hazy melodies of Paloma in ritualistic form. “I used to think that I / Was running from the night / But I've been following behind / The light, all this time,” is sung in a haunting tone, showing that Paloma digs deep, both into her personal and musical reservoirs, to produce poetry in song that remains cathartic until its final note and subsequent silence.
The finale, “yeti,” has a folk tinge to it and a level of restfulness that contrasts starkly with the opening track, bringing Cacophony to a contradicting but satisfying end. Each piano key’s waterfall note and eerie string swell color the voices of Paloma and Benjamin George Cramer (better known as Old Sea Brigade) in a sonic landscape painting that is impossible to look away from.
Much like the vast landscapes of Derbyshire County, inhabited by humans since the Neolithic period and where Paloma hails from, the stories of Cacophony tell of issues and feelings as old as time itself. Perhaps it is in these eternal facts of existence that the music takes on a lasting resonance, traversing so many familiar experiences across so many humans yearning for communal compassion.
Listen to Cacophony below:
