Caroline - Caroline 2 (CD)

Ever evolving London-based eight-piece ensemble caroline return with their first new music in three years. “The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,” says Jasper Llewellyn. Fleshed out over several songwriting trips across Scotland, France and England, caroline’s second album picks up where its predecessor left off, but in many, many others, it finds them breaking new ground. It makes for a record of extraordinary scope – where the organic and the artificial, the harsh and the beautiful, the pristine and the hazy all clash and combine. ‘Tell me I never knew that’ welcomes a new voice entirely in Caroline Polachek. A mutual fan, Polachek agreed not only to contribute to a song, but to push it even further. “She was a force to be reckoned with,” says O’Malley. “She was singing for five or six hours, writing new harmonies.” On caroline 2, what were once incidental moments have become an intentional centerpiece. On ‘Coldplay cover’ (a joke name that ended up sticking), half of the band started playing in their manager’s living room, the other half in the kitchen, while engineer Syd Kemp physically took a microphone from one room to the other. There are many other worlds to be found across this record – There are earthly sweeps of strings, starkly manipulated vocals, low resonant drones, fractured snippets of field recordings and a great heaving sound – heavily distorted acoustic instruments – Constantly shifting, but consistently magnificent.

1    Total euphoria
2    Song two
3    Tell me I never knew that
4    When I get home
5    U R UR ONLY ACHING
6    Coldplay cover
7    Two riders down
8    Beautiful ending