I probably first heard the word Polari about fifteen years ago when I was a newly out homosexual, I knew it was some kind of ‘lost gay language’ but I didn't take too much interest in gay history back then, looking to the past felt difficult. ‘Polari’ was a gay relic that I put alongside hanky codes, secret handshakes and Edna Everage. Ten years later I would play Ritchie in It's A Sin and get to grapple with my gay identity in a way that totally transformed my life. I loved learning about queer history so much, it gave me a new way to understand myself. Now after more than a decade of releasing music as Years & Years, I'm about to release my first album under my own name. I asked myself… what is an Olly Alexander album? If I wanted to distil the purest essence of whatever it is inside of me, I needed to try something new.