caroline - "Total euphoria"

caroline have shared their first new, original tune since their debut full-length in 2022 and it's called "Total euphoria."

In 2022, minimalist post-rock group caroline dropped their slow-moving, but striking self-titled debut album. Not long after, the group covered a song by ambient artist Claire Rousay, but otherwise, we haven't heard any new music from the band until today. "Total euphoria" marks the band's first piece of new material in three years and much like their debut, it's another track that slowly comes together over wiry guitar that work that slowly builds up over repeated slashing strokes to form a kind of unhinged melody while drums crash all around them in the background. A cacophony of strings adds to the chaos, but the steady vocals assert a sense of control that helps keep the song in check. When talking about the track, the band shared:

The first iteration of this song was played as a three (Mike, Casper and Jasper) in 2020 while we were writing our first album. It was a similar style to the guitars in the back half of “Natural Death” — off-kilter/syncopated — but played much wonkier and messier, and then with a broken rock beat kind of erupting at different moments. It somehow didn’t quite fit with the music we were writing/recording at the time but there was a kernel in there of something we felt we would want to explore later.

Eventually it became one of many things that we’ve happened upon that felt good to play for 20 mins straight. This one felt especially good as it was very consistently “loud” and full on which was maybe a bit unusual for us at the time, and also everyone was playing these three different rhythms simultaneously which made it feel endlessly cyclical. Jasper then took the main chords and wrote a load of really nice top line stuff for singing, then we put together all the other parts with the rest of the band and finalized a structure. We realized the golden potential of how good it sounded with Jasper and Magda singing in unison also as a style, and they wrote some extra vocals and harmonies together. 

There's still no word on a follow-up record, but given this promising new tune, the gears certainly seem to be in motion.