Caroline Crawley was the co-founder of
Shelleyan Orphan alongside guitarist
Jemaur Tayle. They met in their mutual home town of
Bournemouth, England, where they had a shared appreciation of the poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley. The name of the band comes from the Shelley poem "
Spirit of Solitude". Crawley was the lead vocalist in the band that went on to release four albums,
Helleborine (1987),
Century Flower (1989),
Humroot (1992) and
We Have Everything We Need (2008). In 1991, Crawley was approached by
4AD Records founder
Ivo Watts-Russell who asked her to appear on four tracks of
This Mortal Coil's album
Blood. Crawley was permitted to do her own interpretations of the tracks, and appeared in the video for the
Syd Barrett cover, "Late Night". In the early 1990s, Crawley formed
Babacar along with bassist Roberto Soave, guitarist Rob Steen, and drummer
Boris Williams. They made their live debut playing four songs at the
4AD Records 13 Year Itch celebration on 22 July 1993 at the ICA, London. They released one album,
Babacar in 1998, which also featured
Porl Thompson, and were later joined by
Jemaur Tayle. ==Death==