For the last few years Caribou’s Dan Snaith has been heavily invested in his more overtly dance music oriented project Daphni and label Jiaolong.
Jiaolong and his Daphni project have been a means for Snaith to experiment with sounds that build on the charming melodic quality of Caribou taken (and bent and stretched) to it’s extreme.
Jiaolong and Daphni have also created a platform for other artists to explore that in themselves (see: Toro Y Moi’s Les Sins project and Snaith’s most recent collaboration with Owen Pallett.)
However, part of exploring the outer edges is a necessary returning to form, to not forget where you began, the way in which music tends to formally return to a theme.
Caribou was and has consistently been playing with big beats, shimmering chromatic loops and hazy layers of melody since the earliest days, when Snaith initially released albums as Manitoba.
2010’s “Swim” was perhaps a harbinger of the direction Snaith wanted to go as it took everything he’d done up to that point and ratcheted it up a notch, taking what was essentially amazing head music and turning it into full-on warehouse stompers.
After an extended hiatus on the dancefloor, Caribou is back with a new single off his forthcoming October release Our Love (which he’ll be previewing at this year’s FYF Fest.)
“Can’t Do Without You” has a soulful House sample that hints at soulful House-world Snaith’s been living in for the past few years, but the track picks up where Swim left off.
A vaguely ecclesiastic and/or romantic proclamation of absolute need awash in infinitely rising synth swirls, fills you with anxious hope.
I can’t wait for the fall.