A Stroke Of Genius

Canada’s leading electro pioneer Caribou leaves his nostalgic experimentalism behind and makes liquid dance music with ‘Swim’…

I just love talking about myself constantly, so this is a perfect vehicle for me,” Caribou, real name Dan Snaith, jokes when asked if he likes being interviewed. You see, we were concerned, what with him being a distinguished synth experimenter’n’all, that he might be one of those anaemic-faced, cagey muso nerds who are only really concerned with connecting with cables. But that’s certainly not the case, and with a string of radiant club-friendly songs up his sleeve, who can blame him for wanting to rave about it? The Canadian artist’s ¬fifth album (he’s done two under the Manitoba guise and three as Caribou), ‘Swim’ is certainly a departure from 2007’s ‘Andorra’. The 60s drenched haze of swirling psychedelia has morphed into bulbous, cathartic bursts of throbbing beats sure to send anyone listening into a miraculous state of euphoria. “There’s something nice and immediate about dance music,” Snaith explains. “I never wanted to do the same things twice; my albums tend to change a bit. Because I can’t see the kind of excitement of retreading over old ground,” he explains. “I’ve been going out to clubs more than going to gigs recently, I’ve just been getting more excited about dance music than bands and stuff so that was part of where the music was pushed in that direction.” Snaith sees ‘Swim’’s album title as fundamental to his new resonance. “I had this idea that I wanted to make dance music that sounded liquid, sounded fluid. All the sounds on the record are washing around from the left to the right. All the elements sounded fluid, where normally people would expect dance music to sound rigid and metallic.” But there’s also another motivation; “During the past year I learnt to swim. I took swimming lessons and possibly that was why these ideas started occurring to me,” he says. “I became obsessed with swimming and went from not being able to get from one end of the pool to the other to going out all the time. It’s both totally a naïve title, and rich to the sound of the record.” Juxtaposing heavy convulsions with a delicate, lyrical vulnerability, ‘Swim’ isn’t just a great dance album; it’s an undeniable alt-pop gem, and con¬firmation that, whatever avenue Caribou goes down next, it will always be injected with explosive ingenuity.

‘Swim’ is released on City Slang on April 19th.