Hayley griffiths

Close harmonies, smooth grooves, infighting and ‘the bag’: making an album on stage

From the noisy streets, community cafés and surprisingly verdant cemeteries of Southeast London have risen CAROLINE : a confoundingly brilliant eight-piece band with no obvious frontperson, fusing choral folk with fractured post-rock and experimental pop. As Sam Richards discovers, they haven’t made life easy for themselves. “But there has to be a vulnerability of some sort. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

The month’s best guitar music – a hand-picked selection of the finest fretwork on wax

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A CASUALTY FAVE…

shouting forever into the receiver Anne Denholm (harp), Louise McMonagle (cello), Jonathan Morton (violin) et al NMC NMC D285 61:56 mins Tackling social themes and reckoning with history is part of wh

U.S. Girls ★★★★ Scratch It 4AD. CD/DL/LP ...