It’s the month of June, and I’m under a cloud. Short with my baristas in the morning, sullen with my colleagues by day, killing more boxed wine than I’d care to admit at night. My relationship is unravelling, and I’m mostly miserable.
So when Can’t Do Without You, the lead single off Caribou’s sixth studio album, Our Love (due October 7 on Merge), lands in my inbox on June 3, I pounce. Dejected and disillusioned, I latch onto the track’s deep house warmth, the slowly building synths gradually expanding toward climax, the earworm vocal loops that seem to circle the drain of my clobbered heart.
I’m therefore surprised when, the night before my interview with the man behind the moniker, Dan Snaith, I find a Pitchfork review comparing the song’s effect to endorphin-rushing narcotics. “It sounds as if Snaith is giddily celebrating the life-affirming love invoked by his next LP’s title,” the critic – who, I conclude, must be in some honeymoon phase of romantic courtship – goes on to say.
Huh.
Over the phone from his basement (aka music lab) in London, England, Snaith sheds light on this dichotomy.
“My main experience with love, in all of these different manifestations, is that joyousness and melancholy in one’s life are right next door to each other all the time,” he says.
“I’ve had friends who have been terribly sick and passed away right as my daughter was learning to speak, and that’s an exhilarating time. For songs like Can’t Do Without You, or ones with few words, I wanted both sides. There is a sense of dependency in that song and of just being stuck – it’s a loop – joined together, whether it’s entirely functional or partially functional, and there’s something melancholy about that.
“But people are entirely welcome to read it as a straightforward declaration of connection. That’s what I want: that texture and richness of contradictory nature to live side by side in the music. That was the idea.”
At this point, any Caribou idea is a pretty sure bet. He’s been remarkably versatile through multiple genres, dabbling in minimalist electronica, Krautrock, shoegaze and jazz on early records. His 2007 foray into sunny 60s psych pop, Andorra, won him the Polaris Music Prize. But his curveball into house- and techno-inspired dance music for 2010’s critically beloved Swim album marked a chapter he wanted to explore in more than just nine songs.
“Swim felt like unfinished business. It wasn’t an attempt to capture some essence of music I loved from the past. It was the first one where I’d really carved out my own little bit of musical territory. I felt like I was opening a door to a bunch of different ideas and a new chapter. Our Love is a continuation of those ideas. It feels like a sibling to Swim, and it also feels like my most personal record.”
Our Love is definitely a companion to its predecessor, but it’s also decidedly more soulful.
“One of the things that’s wonderful about soul music generally, whether it’s classic soul or contemporary R&B, is that it manages to get a bittersweet sentiment that marries happiness and melancholy. You can have a piece of music that’s two minutes long and at the same time invigorating and heartbreaking.”
Hence, Can’t Do Without You.
Snaith had originally intended the album to pay a larger debt to R&B, and although elements of the genre remain, he says he wound up eschewing the keyboard synths and clipped drum programming that are so popular right now.
“In some ways I’m glad it didn’t end up being that record, because that’s the sound of the moment even more than when I was working on it,” he says. “The record warmed up a lot as I was making it – more rich-sounding, deeper-sounding textures.”
The original idea left its mark, though, evidenced by the warped stuttering vocal samples, woozy bass lines and beats that nod to hip-hop.
Though it’s strange to say about an artist who has consistently connected with music lovers since releasing his first album in 2001 as Manitoba (before a litigious punk rocker forced him to change his name to Caribou a few years later), Our Love is the first time Snaith actively thought about how fans would receive his material.
Swim reached audiences Snaith had never considered (luxe clubgoers and fans of the FIFA video game on which it was featured, for example) and entirely flipped his approach.
“I went from just making music for me and disappearing into this little world of sounds I could make for myself to thinking about music that was explicitly for everybody who was going to hear it. When I was recording, I’d think about making that figurative distance between me and the person listening as short as possible.
“Swim was more of a miasmic thing that floated around the listener. My voice was hidden in lots of layers of reverb and effects, and all the sounds were manipulated. For this one, because I wanted to have a sense of directness and closeness, everything is much more focused.”
Despite the new approach, he went to work on the new record in the very same way the Dundas, Ontario, native has done since moving to London in 2001 for his PhD in mathematics (yes, he’s also a genius in the more conventional way, too): in his basement with “synthesizers, a drum kit, a computer and a pile of records.”
Snaith culled the 10 finished songs from 800 to 900 tracks or track ideas, enlisting his friend Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) to help edit.
Snaith also brought on Canadian friends: composer/violinist/everythingman Owen Pallett – who was once his roommate during a rehearsal stint in Toronto – and electro-R&B artist Jessy Lanza, whose native Hamilton now incorporates Snaith’s hometown.
Pallett was an adviser for the entire album, a musical kindred spirit for Snaith to bounce ideas off, and he composed violin riffs for four tracks. Lanza, meanwhile, co-wrote and sang on alt-R&B song Second Chance.
Both contributors happen to be up for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize for their respective albums.
“I don’t know who to cheer for,” Snaith says, laughing. “Both of their albums are amazing. I guess Owen’s already won it, so my instinct is to cheer for Jessy.”
Smart thinking, as the two will be spending the fall together as Lanza opens for Caribou on their European and North American dates over the next three months.
“She’s going to be playing with us and singing the song she wrote for the record. Apart from that, the strength of the show is that it’s not a new band – we’ve got all that accumulated experience together.”
Caribou’s touring outfit consists of drummer Brad Weber, John Schmersal on bass and vocals, Ryan Smith on guitar and keyboards, and Snaith himself on a second drum kit, singing and playing keys.
“There’s four of us onstage obviously,” says Snaith. “But there’s lots of technology as well. We’re all connected to one another – playing keyboards and pushing buttons that control different things in the arrangement and the mix. It allows us to both sound like a band and not sound like a band if we want to.”
The last tour stop happens to be in Toronto, something especially exciting since the last time Caribou was scheduled to play here in 2012, while touring with Radiohead, the fatal Downsview Park stage collapse forced them to cancel.
“Even though I haven’t lived in Toronto for a long time, it feels like a homecoming. Other guys in the band do live in Toronto, and so many of my friends are there. I can’t wait.”
Toronto, in turn, has shown Caribou a lot of love, near universally praising each release and frothing in anticipation of every new one. Given the accolades, does Snaith ever worry about his ability to deliver?
“Once the record’s done, I’m usually pretty confident about it,” he says. “But there’s always the sense that I have this relationship with music – and that might just disappear someday, you know? Most musicians worry that one day they just won’t be able to do it any more, and that adds a bit of urgency – of wanting to make music that I’m excited about.”
julial@nowtoronto.com | @julialeconte
Caribou plays the Danforth Music Hall November 24. More from our Fall Music Preview here.
