caroline announce their new LP new album caroline 2 will drop on May 30th via Rough Trade Records. The band recorded the LP over 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, it was engineered by Syd Kemp, mixed by Jason Agel and mastered by Heba Kadry in NYC. Further Tour Dates are also announced today, in additional to their headline Islington Assembly Hall in June as part of a nationwide UK tour, the group will also perform in London at Rough Trade East on the day the album is released. Ahead of this they’ll be appearing at Rewire Festival in The Hague in early April and new dates have also been confirmed in Japan and across Europe in September. Full details below.

Ahead of the arrival of caroline 2, the group have shared “Tell me I never knew that’ featuring Caroline Polachek along with a video directed by Andrew Norman Wilson, known for his work with Oneohtrix Point Never. 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!

Caroline was amazing. She wrote a load of extra parts that gave the whole thing such a lift, and then spent a few hours tracking a load of more improvised parts. We were still recording at about 1.30am when we decided to call it, but there was no indication that Caroline was the slightest bit tired or that she had lost any momentum in her ability to sing, even though she’d been singing for about 6 hours. It was an inspiring thing to witness! We did a little bit more re-ordering together with Caroline a few weeks after the session and then the song was finally there.”

“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.

caroline’s founding members Casper Hughes, Jasper Llewellyn and Mike O’Malley began 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. 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, violinists Magdalena McLean and Oliver Hamilton, 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 O’Malley and Llewellyn’s roots in Appalachian folk. Their debut self-titled album caroline (released in Feb 2022) and mixed by John ‘Spud’ Murphy (black midi, Lankum).

caroline
caroline 2
Album
Tracklisting

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

caroline 2025 Tour Dates

Thu, 30th May – London, Rough Trade East
Sat, 31st May– Bristol, Trinity
Sun, 1st June – Falmouth, KCM Church
Tue, 3rd June – London, Islington Assembly Hall
Wed, 4th June – Cardiff, The Gate
Fri, 6th June – Manchester, Band On The Wall
Sat, 7th June – Glasgow, St Lukes
Sun, 8th June – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
Wed, 3rd Sept – Tokyo, Japan
Tue, 9th Sept – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Tolhuistuin
Thu, 11th Sept – Aarhus, Denmark – Alter Festival
Fri, 12th Sept – Copenhagen, Denmark– Loppen
Sun, 14th Sept – Brussels, Belgium – Ancienne Belgique
Mon, 15th Sept – Paris, France – Petit Bain
Tue, 16th Sept – Lille, France – Aeroneuf

pre-order caroline 2 HERE