| Q & A: Caribou |
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| Written by Steve McPherson | |
| Friday, April 11, 2008 at 11:01 AM | |
I'd already started listening casually to Caribou's latest record, Andorra, when a friend of mine starting raving about Dan Snaith's project to me, describing it as Panda Bear meets Menomena. For those of you not up on the indie argot, that essentially means a combination of hazey '60s psychedelia and cut and paste experimental funkiness. Now that I've gotten deeply into Andorra, I can say that while the comparison is apt, Caribou's latest has its own unique appeal that goes beyond mash-ups of established sounds. For one thing, while Andorra wasn't an exactly unforeseeable album for Caribou, it's an unlikely one. Snaith, a native of Canada now living in London, is a Ph.D. in mathematics who makes all of Caribou's music himself, but he's never been easy to pin down stylistically. At times, his music is a conflagration of samples and layers of stuttering beats not unlike Dosh's, but just as often it has a darker edge that buzzes and crackles like the broken-down, overgrown sound of Boards of Canada. Further complicating matters is his airy voice, which he layers in harmonies that recall the Zombies and other psychedelic pop and garage acts. But where before he seemed to slip between these different modes, it all comes together on Andorra. Opener "Melody Day" drops in full swing, insistent drums and bass driving the song forward while sleigh bells jangle distantly and sweeps of flute and strings swell and recede. The blend of boxy, clattering percussion and stratospheric vocals is like the sky clearing after a thunderstorm, and that juxtaposition occurs again on songs like "After Hours" and "She's the One," whose haunting, looped layer of background vocals shoots the track through with unease, imbuing the song's heartache with an authentic knot-in-the-stomach feeling. Stream "Meoldy Day" below: Live, Snaith enlists a band of sympathetic musicians to deliver the Caribou experience, and they'll be rolling into town on Saturday, April 12 to Play the Triple Rock along with Fuck Buttons (read Chris Polley's review of their new record here). Unfortunately, their regular drummer Brad Weber took a nasty spill from a ladder recently, fracturing his hand in two places, so Sinkane drummer Ahmed Gallab has been filling in on tour. Snaith was kind enough to answer a clutch of questions for Reveille via e-mail about new drummers and his songwriting process.  Reveille Magazine: It seems like the obvious place to start is with your recent drummer drama; how's Brad doing and how is Ahmed working out for the shows you've done with him so far?Reveille: I read that you get tired of answering questions about the connection between math and music, so I'm going to try and ask a different question: If you find that there's no direct connection there, do you feel like having a balance of things to work on in your life is healthier for those different parts? Snaith: i actually don't do any mathematics whatsoever these days - ever since i got my phd almost 3 years ago. i did enjoy having the balance of two completely different things in my life but it got too crazy at the end. i didn't have time to eat or sleep. Reveille: I'd like to know a little bit about your songwriting process: Does it begin with you and a piano or a guitar, in semi-traditional fashion? Or does it come from collaging samples or something completely different? Snaith: this album was different from the others actually. with the previous albums i just started tracks by setting a drum loop or something going and improvising chords and melodies over the top of it - building the music out of layers - but with this album i wrote the songs first on either a keyboard instrument or bass and humming melodies over the top. i realised that the loop based way wasn't ever going to result in the kind of pop compositions that i wanted and i had to think more of writing the song as a whole. Reveille: I'd also like to know about the process of going from the studio, where you're doing almost all of the playing, to taking the music on the road. Are you pretty strict about getting the parts down from the album, or does the music shift and change in the players' hands? Snaith: it's definitely a collaborative thing. we get together and work the parts out collectively - all us giving our input as to how the songs should sound - and then the songs change as we tour them. Reveille: Somewhat in that vein, have you ever, or have you ever considered, touring as a solo act and working with loops in a live context? Snaith: i used to do a solo laptop show at the beginning but i think it was more boring both for me and for the people in the audience. i don't think anything would be gained by going back to that. COMING UP: Caribou with Fuck Buttons. Saturday, April 12. Triple Rock Social Club. 9pm. $12/$15. 21+. Watch the video for "She's the One": |
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| Last Updated: Friday, August 15, 2008 at 09:27 AM |
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