Swim is Caribou’s masterpiece; an album that absorbs club culture sounds weaved within subtle pop frameworks, and the record Dan Snaith has wanted to bring to fruition for as long as he has been making music. Snaith, a Canadian from small-town Ontario now based in England, has been a leading figure in electronic music over the past decade. A mathematics scholar and an ingenious multi-instrumentalist/composer, he surprised critics and fans with 2007’s Andorra, a brilliant, electro-tinged pop breakthrough with a timeless grace that made most year-end “Best of” lists and won Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize. After the startling infectiousness of Andorra, Swim is a more complex, multi-layered affair–rife with fascinating rhythms, instrumentation, and vocals (including those of Born Ruffians’ Luke Lalonde, who appears on “Jamelia” that becomes more alluring with each listen.
“I think this is the record that I’m most proud of because it’s the most ‘me’ in the way things sound; I feel like I have my own vocabulary now,” says Snaith. “So much of contemporary music is soaked in referencing this or that. I wanted people to put the record on and not be able to say, ‘This sounds like so-and-so.’ I want people to say, ‘This sounds like Dan!’ It’s what everybody wants – to have their fingerprint on the music they’re making. I feel like I’ve achieved that to a greater extent than I have in the past, and that’s exciting.”
Listen to “Odessa”
[audio:http://skopemag.com/audio/Caribou_01_Odessa.mp3]
TOUR DATES
05.03: Toronto, ON – Phoenix
05.04: Ottawa, ON – Babylon
05.05: Montreal, PQ – Tulipe
05.06: Boston, MA – Middle East Downstairs
05.07: Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall
05.08: New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
05.09: Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian
05.10: Washington, DC – Rock ‘n Roll Hotel
05.11: Charlottesville, VA – Jefferson
05.12: Chapel Hill, NC – Cat’s Cradle
05.13: Atlanta, GA – The Earl
05.14: Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
05.15: Houston, TX – Warehouse Live Studio
05.16: Austin, TX – Emo’s
05.18: Phoenix, AZ – Clubhouse
05.19: Los Angeles, CA – El Rey
05.20: San Diego, CA – Casbah
05.21: Mexico City, MX – Teatro Fru Fru
05.24: San Francisco, CA – Independent
05.26: Portland, OR – Hawthorne
05.28: Victoria, BC – Sugar
05.29: Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw
05.30: George, WA – Sasquatch
05.31: Calgary, AB – Republik
06.01: Edmonton, AB – Starlite
06.02: Saskatoon, SK – Amigo’s
06.03: Winnipeg, MB – Royal Albert Arms
06.04: Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
06.05: Davenport, IA – Rock Island Brewing Company
06.07: St. Louis, MO – Firebird
06.08: Louisville, KY – Zanzabar
06.09: Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
06.10: Hamilton, ON – Casbah
06.11: Halifax, NS — Paragon
