Caribou
Merge Records
(2010)

Daniel Snaith has been making music professionally for almost ten years. Since his first EP in October 2000, he has covered more musical ground than just about anyone in the business. His records range from the “indietronica” of his first record Start Breaking My Heart (released as Manitoba) to the brash psychedelic flourishes of 2007′s Andorra. Despite these recordings’ incredible variety, he manages to maintain a distinct continuity. Familiar sounds and references bind the records together: a love of organic instrumental lines meshed in increasingly interesting ways with extreme studio production. Throughout his decade-long career he’s managed to acquire a whole set of sounds and references to follow him. Swim, his fifth record, is a homecoming of sorts, a return to the sounds that initially got Snaith into music. Nineties UK techno, Orb and early Warp records are the driving sources of exploration.

Make no mistake: this is not a “techno” record. It is unmistakably a Caribou record. Snaith takes all of the textures he has been developing over his musical career and edits them down into dance music. And yes, by the loose interpretations of the indie music world, this is probably the most dance-oriented album most indie kids are going to hear. The ghost of his former musical referents are still there. The saxophones and flutes are all still there. The sense of melody he has been slowly developing is here in force. Snaith isn’t just making a play for the day-glo leggings set. His experiments are entirely his own.
Swim is electronic maximalism without any of the purism. Its use of techno feels more like an outsider’s appropriation of the art. His songs threaten, but never actually drop into full-on four-on-the-floor beats. They are perpetually holding back, always beginning. “Odessa,” with its submerged beat and ricochet drum hits, demonstrates a level of pop sensibility unmatched by any of his previous efforts. “Kaili” balances an insistent synth line with an equally prominent flute and horn section. Both of these songs demonstrate Snaith’s new confidence in his singing abilities. The second half of the album is more textured and spare, sounding like Snaith’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the elements he plays with in the first half. “Bowls,” the stunning centerpiece of the album, is a mesh of organic drum, harp and chimes with more explicitly electronic beats that read seamlessly. “Hannibal,” which winds the record down, downplays percussion to focus on the meticulously produced synth lines.

As dance and house music elements continue to resurface in the patterns of pop music today, Caribou’s remembrances of British techno serve to bring a whole, nearly forgotten set of musical references back into the pop fold. Better than that, though, is the fact that it’s one of the most complete records that Snaith’s released, and a worthwhile listen, on or off the dancefloor.

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http://www.caribou.fm/