One Track Mind

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Daniel Snaith has never shied away from the confounding. His first dreamy, electronic compositions surfaced in the year 2000 under the alias of Manitoba (despite the fact that Snaith was born and raised in the Canadian province of Ontario). After a couple of critically acclaimed LPs and a smattering of EPs and singles under the Manitoba banner, Snaith was forced to change his name to Caribou after a lame lawsuit filed by a Dick. However, the name change friction didn’t slow Snaith down; since the switch in 2005, he’s continued his hot streak with two more full-lengths (The Milk of Human Kindness and Andorra). April 20th will see the release of Caribou’s fifth record, Swim, on the ever fabulous Merge Records imprint.

Swim begins with the intoxicating thump of “Odessa,” a song as weird as it is catchy. Snaith sounds remarkably like Norwegian musical impresario Erlend Øye on the track, his words barely slipping past his lips with restrained coyness. Rhythmically, “Odessa” seems far more conventionally grounded than his more aerial early work, but adjectives like “conventional” should always be taken at face value when describing Caribou’s music. Apart from the 4/4 time signature and the occasional drum fill, there is little about this song that feels traditional. Rather, Snaith is evidently a contemporary of acts like Animal Collective and Four Tet, groups who use fractured beats to serve instrumental and melodic anomalies. “Odessa” is both surprising and spellbinding with a sound that–depending on the level of listener engagement–allows for sinking into one’s thoughts or for paying rapt attention to its gratifying twists and turns.