Caribou

On Andorra, Dan Snaith works like a scientist, dissecting the emotions and notions of his created characters and turning them into a frolicsome jumble of beats and bleeps, flutes and strings, claps and taps. "Sandy" has a playful electropop spirit, while "Eli" floats on psychedelia. "Desiree" basks in Beach Boys-like sanguinity, and "Irene" and "Niobe" repose in a fairy-tale fusion of shoegazer and folktronica. Delving into an array of genres, Snaith has a distinct ability to create order and beauty out of chaos -- maybe it has something to do with that PhD he earned in mathematics.

With every album Ontario-born studio whiz-kid Dan Snaith releases, he moves further from
the mathy electro-hop he pioneered as the one-man band Manitoba, and closer to the
shambling psychedelic orchestra he has developed under the moniker Caribou. Pressing
play on his fourth full-length is like being yanked down the rabbit hole; without warning,
Snaith plunges into the swirling Sixties acid pop of groovy opener "Melody Day."... More >