caro♡ Releases 'from the heart

The French-born, London-based caro♡ announces her sophomore album wild at <3 to come out on September 8th (PC MUSIC). Along with the announcement, she shares the first composition “from the heart <3”, which is written and produced by herself. A member of Planet 1999, her upcoming 11-track album follows her debut Heartbeats/Heartbreaks.

caro♡ talks more about “from the heart <3”: “I remember hearing the vocal melody of the intro in my head first, which doesn’t happen to me that often as I usually start a song by improvising on the keyboard.

I like ‘instrumentals’ or songs with voices but no words, because it sometimes seems more honest in a way, or more straight to the point, it’s out of any cultural consideration and it’s almost like it belongs to another realm because it can touch someone and convey specific feelings without the use of the rational parts of the brain, like it goes straight to your heart. I like that this song is dramatic also.

To me it somehow resumes the emotional journey I’ve taken for the past two years. It starts as this melancholic and nostalgic melody, then it hits and it sounds to me like how deep pain hits and confuses you, you feel like maybe you’ve lost everything and that you’re the only one who can get you out of this ordeal, you feel quite isolated, then there’s a brief respite where time sort of floats, and then all the way to the end is the ascension towards something greater, the gathering of strength. It’s like an eagle spreading its wings which were once broken. 

When I hear the second part of the song I imagine myself as a warrior who’s carried away by so much bravery and faith that there’s just no fear in my heart anymore, and I’m not thinking about any outcome, I’m just making my journey through with conviction, getting stronger and stronger along the way. I thought it was a good closing track because, like ‘behind the clouds’ it is a sort of a summary, and I like its title also, because I think I really tried to do this with this song…and album, i wanted to speak from the heart.”

Her upbringing in the remote stillness of coastal France has deeply shaped her relationship to creativity, “I feel like an outsider having grown up in a place where there’s no cultural industries. I didn’t know the difference between a songwriter, a producer or a composer as a kid so I didn’t build these boundaries in my head”.

caro♡ is founding member and lead vocalist of the pop three-piece Planet 1999 and signee of future-pop label PC Music. Her debut album saw accompanying remixes from Count Baldor, Cecile Believe + mor, as well as working as a producer on other singles for MEYY, daine and more. Planet 1999 have notably collaborated with Charli XCX for instance and did remixes for A. G. Cook, Namasenda, Erika de Casier, Wave Racer etc.

photo credit Mathias Adam @mthsadm