Jasper Llewellyn (caroline) “It’s like less pensive and contemplative. In a way, it feels more hectic”

caroline (Photo: Henry Redcliffe)

More and more I’m losing touch with the hard, semi-ironic and, to be honest, boring post-punk sound that has defined UK guitar music for a few years now. I much prefer a band like caroline: they push the whole thing more in the direction of post-rock, sound accordingly epic, and also have certain emo and folk influences; like a british mixture of Godspeed You! BlackEmperor, American Football and Black Country, New Road. caroline’s music is complex and full of strange time signatures, but has an emotional directness that such sophisticated compositions often lack. The group’s new album, “caroline 2”, is less fluid than their debut and sounds (in the best possible sense) squeezed out, like eight musicians standing in a circle with their eyes closed and letting their emotions run free. It’s crazy how something so decaying – or already broken – can be so uplifting.

In an interview with Kaput author Lennart Brauwers, leading band member/multitalent Jasper Llewellyn talked about the difference between writing with the three main songwriters of caroline or all eight members, their collaboration with Caroline Polachek and what “caroline 2” has to do with video games. Ah, they also talked about Coldplay…

Congratulations to your new album! How was the approach for this one different from the writing process of your debut album?

Jasper Llewellyn: We did a lot more collective writing as an eight piece. It was quite different in that sense. The last one was more cobbled together by the three of us, it was kind of thrown together. The others did contribute to it, but this one was more like: Let’s write a record with eight people.

How does the writing process with eight people look like? Do you just start jamming or does it start with someone bringing in a basic idea? 

Normally, one of the three of us brings in a little idea. Then, the three of us talk about it, try things and improvise a bit, before we come up with a kind an idea for the song and some basic chords or vocal stuff.  That’s when we bring it to the other five to do some improvisation as an eight piece. We always go back to working as a three and then back to working as an eighth and back to working as a three – and so on.

In terms of the of the mood, how would you describe this album in comparison to the last one?

I think it’s like less pensive and contemplative. In a way, it feels more hectic. Well, maybe not hectic, but it feels harder and harsher. It still has the same mood that we’re always trying to achieve, which is euphoric but fragmented, or euphoric but broken. That’s the prevailing mood across all caroline music.

caroline (Photo: El Hardwick)

I wanted to ask you about the decision to just call this one „caroline 2“. Was that the plan from the beginning? 

Yes, our manager was like: You should just call them „caroline“ every time – not even „ caroline 2“, just call it „caroline“ again. We chickened out of doing that, but that would’ve have been a good idea as well. Also, we liked „caroline 2“ because the name feels like video game sequel, and I think there’s something animated or video gamey about the music. There are more synthetic elements in these songs than on the first record, so it felt appropriate to have a video game-esque title.

I feel like there’s something video gamey about the album cover as well. It almost seems like a first person point of view… 

Yeah, that’s true! It was meant to have a first person feel. We were really sure we wanted this perspective out of a car window, with people somehow visible in it – but maybe a little obscured. Magdalena, who sings and plays viola, took the photo on a holiday. Originally, she meant it as a joke, but then we were like: This is better than any of the ideas we actually had for the cover.

How did the collaboration with Caroline Polachek come about?

She was posting our music, so we wrote this vocal part for her and just asked her. She accepted and wrote a lot of the harmonies, all those other little vocal parts.

How you feel about the post-rock label that’s been put on your band? Is that something you think about?

Not anymore. Also, I think our new music isn’t that at all. For the first album, that probably was the best description – even though it didn’t really sound like conventional post-rock. We used to love a lot of classic post-rock, and our early music was influenced by it, for sure. But now, none of us are listening to that. And I don’t think the album sounds like that.

Also, the word folk is used quite a lot in reference to your band. How’s your relationship to folk music?

I definitely listen to folk music, but our music doesn’t sound like folk music now. There are still some folk elements, but the music isn’t really working in response to those genres.

How did the title for the song „Coldplay cover“ come about?

I wrote the initial idea for that song 4 or 5 years ago, and then I just called it that on my laptop. So that just became the name for it, because we thought it’s kind of funny. But yeah, that was just the demo name. Same with „Song two“. We just kept the demo titles. Also, we thought the song is kind of cheesy – and Coldplay is kind of cheesy too.

There are  a lot of british guitar bands that all came out in the last few years. Do you feel like you are part of a particular scene?

I mean, some of them are our friends, like the people from black midi and stuff. There’s a really good community of people, and we do play with them sometimes.  We have met people from the so-called „Windmill scene“ [laughs], but we’re not a part of the same scene as them. We wouldn’t be included in that. I mean, caroline’s never played in the Windmill – obviously you can’t really be part of the scene if you haven’t played at the venue.

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