London’s caroline share a new remix of their song ‘Beautiful ending’ by Giant Claw. The song is originally from their critically-acclaimed sophomore album caroline 2.
caroline’s founding members Casper Hughes, Jasper Llewellyn and Mike O’Malley began playing together in 2017. As the band’s sound kept expanding, so too did their line-up, eventually becoming an eight-piece completed by Freddy Wordsworth, Magdalena McLean, Oliver Hamilton, Hugh Aynsley and Alex McKenzie. By the time the cast settled towards the end of 2019, the songs too were expansive and emotive pieces. Their debut self-titled album caroline (released in Feb 2022) and mixed by John ‘Spud’ Murphy (black midi, Lankum) featured in The Quietus and Loud & Quiet magazine’s Top 5 Albums Of The Year in 2022, and they were also cited as one of the Top 10 New Artists in Rolling Stone magazine.
In one way, caroline’s second album picks up where its predecessor left off – 2022’s sublime self-titled debut concluded with ‘Natural death’, where they also explored the possibilities of interlocking off-kilter guitar patterns – but in many, many others, it finds them breaking new ground. Those two worlds on the opener are only the beginning. “One of the fundamental themes is the idea of different things happening at once, things that are very different from each other but also simultaneous,” says Llewellyn, who along with Mike O’Malley and Casper Hughes forms the songwriting core of the larger eight-piece band. 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.
“The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,” says Llewellyn. “It’s more intentional,” adds O’Malley. Fleshed out over several songwriting trips, with the central three upping sticks to rural Scotland, with vocalist and viola player McLean then joining them in southern France, followed by writing sessions as a full eight-piece in Margate and Essex then recording in Ramsgate, bonds have become strengthened. “We were just about an eight-person band on the last one, but now we’re a proper eight-person band,” says Llewellyn.
Stream / download ‘Beautiful ending (Giant Claw Remix)’ here.
Stream / download caroline 2 here.
