caroline

caroline’s founding members Casper Hughes, Jasper Llewellyn and Mike O’Malley first started playing together in 2017. Llewellyn and Hughes met at university in Manchester, and on moving to London invited Llewellyn’s old friend Mike O’Malley to form a group, rehearsing in the upstairs room of a South London pub. Yet as they kept on playing together, it became clear that something altogether deeper was emerging. “As soon as the songs started to more structured, we thought some swoony violin would be good,” says O’Malley. To provide it, they recruited Oliver Hamilton, who had also had a stint on bass in their early days before moving to violin.

As the band’s sound kept expanding, so too did their line-up, eventually becoming an eight-piece completed by trumpeter and bassist Freddy Wordsworth, another violinist Magdalena McLean, percussionist Hugh Aynsley and flute, clarinet and saxophone player Alex McKenzie. By the time the cast settled towards the end of 2019, the songs too were expansive and emotive pieces, their rich palette drawing on a mixture of choral singing, Midwestern emo and Appalachian folk.

Their self-titled debut album was released by Rough Trade Records in 2022 and mixed by John ‘Spud’ Murphy (black midi, Lankum). Drawing near universal acclaim, it was recognized as one of the best albums of 2022 by NPR Music, NME, Pitchfork, Loud And Quiet, and Quietus, among numerous other accolades. On it, songs can cascade like an avalanche with the full force of so many instruments, squalling and rumbling on the edge of all-out collapse. At other times they slip back into impossibly fragile moments of quiet – a simple bassline or a rattle of snare the only sound amid a dark sea of silence. caroline know exactly the right balance between restraint and release.

In May 2025, three years on from the release of  caroline, the now eight-piece released follow up caroline 2. Produced by bandmembers Jasper, Casper and Mike, caroline 2 built on the distinctive sound they established on their debut and amplified it – becoming at once more experimental and more accessible. A collaboration with Caroline Polachek on lead single ‘Tell Me I Never Knew That’ earned them Best New Music at Pitchfork, who called the track “a pastoral ballad that feels digitally mediated and subtly strange.”

“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.

“every note of it feels new, whether that be the glittering art rock of ‘Two riders down’ or the weird, inverted folk-pop of the knowingly-titled ‘Coldplay cover’.” Loud & Quiet (#5, Best Albums of 2025)

 “an album that pushes the boundaries of what rock can do in the age of electronic music” The Line of Best Fit

“confounds the assumption that music of this sort needs to soundtrack emotional revelation rather than being the revelation itself.” Pitchfork – Best New Music

“one of the most exciting bands in the world” Stereogum, Album of the Week