Three years on from the release of debut album ‘caroline’, London-based eight-piece caroline announce new album ‘caroline 2’, to be released on May 30th via Rough Trade Records.
The group spent 18 months working across various writing sessions in the UK, with recording primarily taking place at Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate. The album was produced by the band’s own Jasper Llewellyn, Casper Hughes and Mike O’Malley, engineered by Syd Kemp, mixed by Jason Agel and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC.
Returning with ‘caroline 2’, the eight-piece collective embrace a bolder, more expansive sound. Going beyond their debut’s explorations of repetition, slowness and space, the new album pushes further into dynamic contrasts — organic and electronic, raw and refined. Launched with the striking single ‘Tell me I never knew that’, featuring Caroline Polachek’s unmistakable vocals, “caroline 2” showcases a fearless interplay of layered instrumentation, warped vocal processing, and moments of both euphoria and melancholy. Intentional and immersive, this next chapter solidifies caroline as one of the most innovative voices in contemporary music.
Launch single ‘Tell me I never knew that’ features Caroline Polachek and its accompanying video self-shot by her and the band. The band explain how the song evolved:
“We used to call this one ‘Backstreet boys’ because the opening top line felt like a Backstreet Boys song. The main riff was written by Casper on acoustic guitar and stuck out as a really catchy, bouncy, hypnotic thing. We wrote the opening top line together and straight away we thought ‘this sounds like a melody that Caroline Polachek might sing’ in its hooky-ness. We sort of joked that we’d ask her to sing it but didn’t think it’d actually be on the cards, until about a year later when we sent her the half-finished song and she was up for it!”
The Fat Angel Sings 