Caroline Blind has been working for the past year on a new album of cover songs, re-worked Sunshine Blind songs, and originals, with a variety of collaborators. The collection of songs is a very personal snapshot of Caroline’s influences, relationships, travels, and memories, and is titled “The Spell Between Vol 1”.
The album began when Caroline got fed up with relying on other people to help her produce music. She had been writing songs in the years since her band Sunshine Blind disbanded, and had no outlet for them. She had collaborated with other people, but never found a musical home. She took matters into her own hands and enrolled in an audio engineering course. After learning the ropes and setting up her home studio, she picked a favorite song of hers that would be easy to record to start her solo journey of musical output: “God Damn the Sun” by Swans. A mostly acoustic song, she was able to track it quickly and easily in one night. As she finished recording the beautiful and bitter lyrics, she was overcome with different emotions; a sense of accomplishment, excitement, and relief. A door had opened, she was back to doing what she loved best: making music.
She filmed a home video for the song and posted it on Youtube, and began to work on other cover songs and revive some of the lost songs that had been waiting to see the light of day from past years. She started sharing her music, and soon was asked and was asking her friends in other bands to collaborate so she could learn and do more and more.
Her most fruitful collaboration by the end of the year, was with guitarist Rich W., of the band The Wake. Friends from having their bands play together many times in the ’90’s, they got back in touch over social media, and fell into a very organic and easy writing partnership, working on each others’ songs, writing songs, and contributing to each others’ main projects as well, all by exchange of files over the internet, because the two live in cities 2000 miles apart from each other (Caroline in California, and Rich in Ohio).
The next song she undertook in her home studio was a cover of Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry’s “Heaven”, which she worked on with Rich, who liked the result of their demo together and sent it (without telling Caroline) to David Wolfenden, the guitarist from Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry. Fortunately, Wolfenden enjoyed the cover, and even agreed to play on the new track itself, which he did. He tracked all the guitars in a studio in Leeds, England, and sent them over electronically.That collaboration was later followed by Wolfenden asking Caroline to sing on a trip-hop song he had written. She jumped at the chance and wrote the lyrics and vocals, and called it “Death to sleep”. They both agreed the track should be included on “The Spell between Vol 1”, and it is.
Caroline was invited to play a living room show in Dallas, Texas, and she invited Rich to join her there to play the songs they had been working on. He agreed initially, but was unable to make the trip in the end. A friend of the host of the party caught wind that Rich might be there and sent a request through the host, asking if Rich and Caroline could perform a Wake song called “First”. Even though Rich had to cancel, Caroline decided to give it a try, and came up with a very haunting version that she performed in Dallas, with the help of her friend Dave the Dramedy (from Los Angeles) who was able to step in and fill in on guitar for the show.
Rich and Caroline did record the very haunting version of “First” later, and it appears on The Spell Between as well.
Caroline continued playing live shows, and enlisted Dave the Dramedy to help her play duo acoustic sets. The sets consisted of the cover songs, and Sunshine Blind songs as well. The more she played, the more shows she was offered, and she later added and old friend to the live line-up, from the Sunshine Blind days, George Earth ( Switchblade Symphony) so she could play full electric rock band sets (which consist mainly of Sunshine Blind songs).
Playing live helped Caroline evolve a few more songs she wanted to do, as Dave the Dramedy contributed ideas and playing to a re-worked recording ( mostly slower and more acoustic) of Sunshine Blind song “Regodless”, and added a new guitar line to the original recording she’d done of Swans “God Damn the Sun”.
When Caroline was originally struggling with how to re-work “Regodless” for the album, she asked another friend, Ashe Ruppe of Delphine Coma to try it on for size. Ashe immediately came up with new guitar, bass, drums and synth lines, and ended up with a complete remix of the song in his distinctive shoegaze style, and it is included on the album without much further alteration as a remix.
Finally, through her friend James Tramel, bass player for The Wake and October Burns Black, Caroline was introduced to Gordon Young in Edinburgh UK, who has played for many bands, among them The Dream Disciples, Pretentious Moi, Children on Stun, and as a fill in guitarist of October Burns Black. Gordon mostly works these days as a Mixing and Mastering Engineer. Caroline and Gordon struck up a long distance messaging friendship talking about Audio Engineering topics, and eventually she asked him to mix and master The Spell Between. As the album is a patchwork of songs and collaborators, Gordon had no small task of making the album sound cohesive, and contributed even to the playing and arranging in the end, becoming the final member of the cast of characters on the album.
The music on the album runs from minimal to lush, and goes from dreamy to downright spooky. Some songs have drums and bass, some don’t have either. The overall mood is subdued, but there is also an intensity that burns throughout. Inspirations include the Cocteau Twins, Love and Rockets, This Mortal Coil, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Most lyrical topics fall in the “Sad Bastard Songs” or “Murder Ballads” range, and Caroline did a good bit of experimenting with sounds, instruments, styles, and musical collaborators. The only consistent thing in each song is her voice, and she was able to explore more even there, using more harmonies than she had before, and “the voice as an instrument” as well. Though known previously for her powerful rock anthem vocals, this album features a lot more intimate and delicate singing than Caroline usually does, which has been a refreshing evolution for her as well.
The album title, “The Spell Between Vol 1” is a reference to Caroline’s interaction to the songs and the people that made the album. “The songs and people are both things you can have a living relationship with,” she explains, “immediately, and also over the years, and I have loved these songs and the people who did them for a long time. It’s my honor to have evolved those relationships into this new stage, where I give back and hopefully introduce new people to these songs and people… I chose the word “Spell” because it has many meanings, it can mean an enchantment or magic, like the trance musicians can get into when they play together, or it can just mean a stretch of time, which is also what I share with these people and songs, or it can mean to clarify, “to spell something out”, which is always what a songwriter or interpreter is trying to do, to give new meaning to an idea or song… I especially like that meaning, because all the cover songs I did have excellent lyrics, though they may have been not very clear in their original recordings. My album is so sparse in places, that it’s a lyrical showcase, and the lyrics really stand out, which I love.”
This spell has been cast.
Look for Caroline Blind, “The Spell Between, Vol 1” to be released on Valentines Day, Feb 14th, 2020.