Caribou
Caribou
Emo’s Outside
Austin, Texas
Dan Snaith emerged earlier in the decade as a scrupulous producer of melodic noise. He has worked under the stage name Manitoba, but now goes by Caribou. Throughout his career, he borrowed elements from genres ranging from heady IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) to the 4/4 steady motorik beat found in krautrock. Up in Flames, his most critically acclaimed album, still invokes indistinct labels like “indie electronic” that fail to capture the complexity of Caribou’s pop structure. His last album, Andorra, was a 1960s psychedelic pop delight that also won Canada’s Polaris Music Prize. Laced with drum circle arrangements and moments of pure whimsy, the album never dropped its sunny disposition. But unlike its ebullient predecessor, Caribou’s latest album is rueful. Exploring yet another genre, Swim is Snaith’s fluid interpretation of dance music and, in the process, trades the fawning for tales of loneliness for a downcast affair. “Sun,” with an echoing vocal that repeats the word “sun” throughout the song, could be an invitation for the star to brighten the day or a lament of the sun fading into the night.
One could be forgiven for expecting a one-man production show in a live setting, with the musicmaker huddled behind the boards because Caribou expanded to a four-man band. On stage, the instruments outnumbered the musicians. The set-up included several guitars, keyboards, bass, glockenspiel, two drum kits and a video backdrop that added an acid-inspired visual experience to accompany the music. But part of seeing Caribou is watching Snaith, ever the multi-instrumentalist, switch instruments several times during the course of one song while singing.
Caribou opened with “Sundialing,” a track from the sun-kissed previous album that has one main purpose: to reintroduce the audience to the drums. While drums are an integral part in the Caribou oeuvre, recorded, they sound somewhat subdued in favor of the nuances found in the densely sequenced tracks. However, on stage, the drum kits were front-and-center while the guitars hovered in the back. “Sundialing” began with drumbeats that kept time with the 4/4 guitars, but then the drums started to shuffle toward a thundering peak once Snaith shifted his guitar to his back and started drumming too. An encapsulation of the entire show was captured here with drums demanding attention.
From there, Swim’s melancholy set in – the defeated “Jamelia” asked “What more could I give her? What more could I do?” Delivered in ghostly smeariness, the soft vocals played to the watery palette of the album throughout the night. But for an album obsessed with club culture, the audience still danced to the polyrhythmic “Odessa,” a track that culled a house piano line straight out of the ‘90s. “Leave House” playfully bounced with flute trills and the most straightforward vocal turn by Snaith. Snaith’s cavalcade of odd sounds appear and disappear much like in the aforementioned “Sun,” while “Kaili” managed to occupy beatless stretches with warm synth stabs and vocals that build on top of each other.
by Joshua Barajas
Emo’s Outside
Austin, Texas
One could be forgiven for expecting a one-man production show in a live setting, with the musicmaker huddled behind the boards because Caribou expanded to a four-man band. On stage, the instruments outnumbered the musicians. The set-up included several guitars, keyboards, bass, glockenspiel, two drum kits and a video backdrop that added an acid-inspired visual experience to accompany the music. But part of seeing Caribou is watching Snaith, ever the multi-instrumentalist, switch instruments several times during the course of one song while singing.
Caribou opened with “Sundialing,” a track from the sun-kissed previous album that has one main purpose: to reintroduce the audience to the drums. While drums are an integral part in the Caribou oeuvre, recorded, they sound somewhat subdued in favor of the nuances found in the densely sequenced tracks. However, on stage, the drum kits were front-and-center while the guitars hovered in the back. “Sundialing” began with drumbeats that kept time with the 4/4 guitars, but then the drums started to shuffle toward a thundering peak once Snaith shifted his guitar to his back and started drumming too. An encapsulation of the entire show was captured here with drums demanding attention.
From there, Swim’s melancholy set in – the defeated “Jamelia” asked “What more could I give her? What more could I do?” Delivered in ghostly smeariness, the soft vocals played to the watery palette of the album throughout the night. But for an album obsessed with club culture, the audience still danced to the polyrhythmic “Odessa,” a track that culled a house piano line straight out of the ‘90s. “Leave House” playfully bounced with flute trills and the most straightforward vocal turn by Snaith. Snaith’s cavalcade of odd sounds appear and disappear much like in the aforementioned “Sun,” while “Kaili” managed to occupy beatless stretches with warm synth stabs and vocals that build on top of each other.
by Joshua Barajas
