On August 30, 2024, up-and-coming British artist Paris Paloma released her debut album, ‘Cacophony’. The album consists of fifteen songs: ‘my mind (now)’; ‘pleaser’; ‘his land’; ‘drywall’; ‘labour’; ‘boys, bugs and men’; ‘knitting song’; ‘as good a reason’; ‘triassic love song’; ‘escape pod’; ‘last woman on earth’; ‘bones on the beach’; ‘hunter’; ‘the warmth’; and ‘yeti’. Several of them – ‘his land’, ‘drywall’, ‘labour’, ‘boys, bugs and men’ and ‘last woman on earth’ – unpack themes of mistreatment, toxic relationships, and abuse, dealing with a common message, however expressed, of feminine rage. Apart from this common theme, ‘escape pod’ lays out a story of loneliness and extreme isolation. ‘knitting song’ and ‘as good a reason’ speak of camaraderie, love, and friendship between women. Paris Paloma wrote ‘hunter’ after a period of depression; the song tells the story of a hunter and a predator meeting, and eventually coexisting. ‘triassic love song’ details the “Triassic cuddle”, two ancient fossils, one a reptile and one a mammal, found curled together after a flash flood drowned them in their burrow. ‘the warmth’ is about finding happiness again, essentially “discovering the light”, and ‘yeti’ details a once-close relationship lost long ago.
Paris Paloma mixes indie, folk, and dark pop to create masterpieces. Her haunting lyrics combine with masterful melodies and instrumentals to create works of art that are mind-consuming and thought-provoking. She writes lyrics such as “Give me one millennium more there / Maybe I will belong more there” (‘bones on the beach’) and “What is it that stays my hand now? / With so much misery that I could mercifully put an end to” (‘hunter’). In ‘bones on the beach’, she conveys a sense of exhaustion. The entire album is captivating and haunting. In ‘escape pod’, she sings “Why did I deserve to live? / Did I just deserve to watch them die? / Oh why did I?” The lyrics of ‘escape pod’ tell of the narrator’s being cast off her dying planet in a tiny escape pod, and of her growing loneliness, homesickness and isolation. Paris Paloma has hinted that the song was partially inspired by Laika, the Soviet dog who was the first in space.
The first track of the album, ‘my mind (now)’ is probably the most cacophonous song. Almost ethereal-sounding background vocals mix with a generally loud and chaotic instrumental background to back up the line “my mind has not been silent since you”. The track is, according to Paris Paloma, about what trauma did to her mind and its aftermath. She goes on to say that ‘my mind (now)’ is an “embodiment of the act of creation in the form of art and writing”. But other than that, the rest of the album is less cacophonous than put-together, and some are much slower, such as ‘triassic love song’ – which is also a very heartbreaking track.
All in all, Paris Paloma has put together a cacophony of different themes and feels in the album ‘Cacophony’: weariness, lost relationships, love, abuse, trauma, alliance, isolation. It’s definitely an album I recommend to people who tend to like indie, pop, and folk. I also recommend Paris Paloma’s music to anyone who likes sad songs, angry songs, and a catchy beat that gets stuck in your head.
