A 32-year-old Canadian with a doctorate in mathematical studies certainly doesn't sound like someone who can throw a dance party. But that's exactly who Dan Snaith is, and with Swim, Caribou's fifth full-length album, that's exactly what he does.
Swim, which arrived Tuesday via Merge Records, is undoubtedly received with high expectations following the critical acclaim of 2007's Andorra, which won the Polaris Music Prize as album of the year. Instead of running with the success of Andorra's psych-pop vibes, though, Caribou takes a ""swim"" through new waters on his latest work.
Snaith's desire to change his sound should come as no surprise to listeners who've experienced the ambient electronics of 2001's Stop Breaking My Heart, the psychedelic pop of Andorra and everything in between. Hell, he even changed his stage name from Manitoba to Caribou back in 2004. Still, Swim is the most exciting and different endeavor that we have seen from Snaith.
After working alongside Four Tet at London's Plastic People dance club, Snaith felt the urge to craft his own form of dance music on Swim: The result is a collection of intricate, often disturbing and, of course, dance-inducing songs.
""Dance music that's liquid in the way it flows back and forth...sounds that slosh around,"" was the way that Snaith described his latest work in an interview with Pitchfork Media.
On the opening track, ""Odessa,"" Caribou sounds like Hot Chip with a case of the chills. With upbeat drum segments, an infectious four-note bass loop and the repeated vocal line ""She can say,"" ""Odessa"" is undoubtedly dance-inducing pop at its best. Lurking in the depths of this track, however, lie the haunting string lines, clanging percussion and disturbing inhales and exhales that provide the song's real intrigue.
With ""Sun,"" Swim's second track, Caribou offers another installment of upbeat rhythms, a four-note bass loop and more repeated vocal lines, this time in the form of Snaith's muffled ""Sun! Sun! Sun!"" shouts. By opening with two songs of the same musical recipe, Swim threatens to be a stagnant experience. Yet, despite having almost identical structures, each of these opening two songs finds Caribou in a completely different mood. Where ""Odessa"" borders on eeriness and discomfort, the dripping synthesizers of ""Sun"" swell with warmth and discovery.
As the album progresses, Snaith continues to balance discomfort with optimism, as is the case on the standout track ""Leave House."" With threatening, not to mention grammatically incorrect, lyrics Snaith sings ""That's the last thing I would do / I'd make sure if I were you/ Leave house,"" issuing a threat to a lover of his. These threats are somewhat lost, though, in the gorgeous onslaught of vocal harmonies, budding walls of electronic walls and flute melodies.
With ""Bowls"" and ""Hannibal,"" both dance-centric grooves that clock in at just over six minutes apiece, Caribou seems to be content with the one-groove idleness often associated with dance music. ""Kaili,"" on the other hand, is a moving and swirling concoction of synthesizers, horns, flutes, drum machines and Snaith's wayfaring, echoed voice.
Above all else, Swim is an album of remarkable engineering: a product of the meticulous, almost mathematical, nature with which Snaith approaches his music. In fact, Snaith recorded almost one hundred demos and ideas before fine-tuning the nine songs that compose Swim. And if this collection of intricate, often disturbing, and dance-inducing songs proves anything, it's that Dan Snaith has an awesome party of musical ideas floating around in that head of his. To discover the best nine, he just had to let them ""swim.""
