Swim [CD]

I only thought I'd review this as I was surprised there had not been any reveiws yet and it deserves one. This is an album of superb, inventive pop music, which seems to carry on where Niobe from his last album Andorra left off. It is catchy but with tons of little sonic surprises that you will catch the more you listen to it. I would struggle to describe it adequately if I tried, and as such I would simply advise that you look up the songs Leave House, Found Out and Sun. That will give you a fairly good taste of what the album is like, and I predict that you will like it and buy it.

Caribou is Canadian composer/musician Daniel Victor Snaith.
'Swim' is his most recent album, having previously released
four other albums under the Caribou and Manitoba banners
since his 2001 debut ('Start Breaking My Heart').

He is a purveyor of gently rhythmic electronic dreams,
although he is also sometimes overtaken momentarily by
the need to create a jolly pop song. 'Bees' on his 2005
album 'The Milk Of Human Kindness' and 'Melody Day' on
'Andorra' (2007) are both fine examples of these lapses.

The nine compositions on 'Swim' create a powerful and
coherent unity whilst retaining plenty of sonic light
and shade to sustain our interest and attention.

Mr Snaith's fragile but friendly falsetto contributes
a distinctive edge to the proceedings. Sometimes bouncing
around happily above and between the dance-friendly beats,
as in opener 'Odessa' (an addictively twitchy number!); or
in others slipping and sliding about like a man negotiating
a passage across thin ice ('Found Out' is an especially
discombobulating - and lovely - example).

The instrumental 'Bowls' is a particularly strong musical idea.
A simple hypnotic pulse is overlaid with rich layers of luminous
synth arpeggios and gamelan-like percussion. The effect is both
exotic and strangely affecting. Canadian temple music at its finest!

'Leave House' combines a jauntily nervous rhythmic and vocal
arrangement with a darker, brooding undertow which generates
considerable emotional tension. We are left uncertain about
the safety of the territory into which Mr Snaith is leading us
and this contrast is the track's greatest strength and arguably
the album's finest moment.

'Lalibella' is a curious miniature. It bursts into bright being
following an almost inaudible introduction, casts its brief spell
and returns from whence it came without as much as a by your leave.

Final track 'Jamelia' features a pleasantly shifty (almost jazzy)
vocal by Luke LaLonde (guitarist and singer with Canadian band
Born Ruffians). He does a good job battling between the waves and
seismic surges which Mr Snaith has conjured from the depths of his
wayward musical imagination. It is a complex and stirring conclusion.

Intelligent electronica of the finest pedigree.

Recommended.

I must say it was a random purchase, but it turned out to be a really good one. Usually I like to pick things on my own and I don't trust all the selection of products 'I might like' just because someone else is telling me to do so. This time I decided to give it a try. I knew that if something came out from ninjatune label it simply couldn't go wrong! I'm a huge fan of their music, I'm absulotely in love with Fink and Bonobo, for those who know what I'm talking about I must say that Caribou is much more playful, funky, electronic than those guys, less acoustic and melancholic, but still great! The bass line is amazing, it's worth listening on good headphones, when you start discovering some of the hidden sounds. Well composed, postive, electryfying album.