Caroline’s debut self-titled album seems like a collection of contradictions.

Music this pastoral isn’t usually so epic in scope. Music this stripped down doesn’t usually feel this grandiose. Music this patient isn’t usually so playful. Music this sparse isn’t usually so captivating.

And yet, the London slowcore outfit has managed to weave ten tracks of tranquil, droning, glacial, almost lazy, positively electrifying music that is as reminiscent of the otherworldly post rock of Godspeed! You Black Emperor as it is the bare-bones man-in-a-cabin folk of early Bon Iver, as close to the 30bpm crawl of Sigur Ros as the manic adventurousness of Anathallo.

Acoustic guitars and upright pianos echo with swells of strings and horns so genteel that not even the bursts of electric guitar noise can break the spell. Through most of the album, it sounds like you’re in the room as the various members of Caroline walk in, pick up their instrument, play a looping melody for a few minutes, then leave without announcing their departure. You can almost hear the drummer idly pacing with a cup of coffee on the tracks with no percussion.

If someone were to tell me that this album was entirely improvised while someone left a recorder running, I might believe them. It’s so organic that it feels accidental. The few moments of studio experimentation aren’t enough to ruin the illusion, even if the strings show for a moment.

As calm and idyllic as it is, it’s impossible to guess where the songs are going to go next, even as much as it relies on meditative repetition. The best example of this paradox is “Skydiving onto the library roof,” which repeats the same two-note string figure for its seven-minute runtime, but as skittering drums and squelching guitar join in, even those two notes feel unpredictable.

As cliche as it might be to say this record is a strange beast, I’m not sure there’s a better descriptor. It’s like some enormous, furry thing, armed with a sharp-toothed grin and razor-sharp claws at the end of its adorably toe-beaned paws. There’s certainly something fearsome about it, but you can’t resist the urge to run up and snuggle with it.

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