Andorra - Caribou

Andorra by Caribou

==Point Me at the Sky…==

You can generally rely on Canada to come up with some good modern music, from old stalwarts of the business like Leonard Cohen and Neil Young to newer acts like Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright and his sister, Martha. Unless you happen to live in Canada, however, finding something nearer the cutting edge may prove to be a little more problematic. One place you could begin the ...
...but once you've listened to Andorra I'm willing to bet that you'll seriously wonder why that is.

==Man Bites Dog…==

Since this album and its creator are probably unfamiliar to most readers of this review, I hope a little introductory background will cast some light.

The man behind Caribou is a 30 year old Canadian from Dundas, Ontario by the name of Dan Snaith. Snaith is a self-confessed nerd but I sense ... more

Andorra by Caribou

Point Me at the Sky…

You can generally rely on Canada to come up with some good modern music, from old stalwarts of the business like Leonard Cohen and Neil Young to newer acts like Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright and his sister, Martha. Unless you happen to live in Canada, however, finding something nearer the cutting edge may prove to be a little more problematic. One place you could begin the search is the Polaris Music Prize, an annual award (currently $20,000) given to "the best Canadian album of the year". Our nearest equivalent in the UK is probably the Mercury Prize, although the Polaris is more likely to throw up some oddities and surprises as it is not restricted to any particular musical genre.

The sure-fire, dead cert winner of the 2007 Polaris was Arcade Fire's brilliant "Neon Bible". Nobody could doubt that. Except that it didn't win. It was in the running alright but the prize actually went to someone called Patrick Watson for "Close to Paradise". You've probably never heard of him but then, chances are you won't have heard of many (or perhaps even any) of the Polaris nominees. For me it's this combination of the esoteric and the unpredictable that lends the Polaris its fascination. That and the quality of the music, of course.

The recently-announced winner of the 2008 Polaris prize is "Andorra" by Caribou, an album released in 2007. You may never have heard of Caribou either, but once you've listened to Andorra I'm willing to bet that you'll seriously wonder why that is.

Man Bites Dog…

Since this album and its creator are probably unfamiliar to most readers of this review, I hope a little introductory background will cast some light.

The man behind Caribou is a 30 year old Canadian from Dundas, Ontario by the name of Dan Snaith. Snaith is a self-confessed nerd but I sense that he hardly needed to have a confession wrung out of him: just take a look at a photo or two and his shapeless trousers, clash-with-everything shirts, glasses and receding hairline begin to give the game away. He could be your old maths teacher. And yes, he really could be, for the Snaith family is positively steeped in the subject. Dan's father is a professor of maths, his sister teaches maths at Bristol University and Dan himself has a PhD in maths.

For some years Snaith recorded and toured under the name of Manitoba; a name redolent of the wilder parts of his home country and well suited to the pastoral electronic sound he was creating in his music. Then out of the blue an email arrived from one Richard Blum, who had enjoyed a less than stellar musical career in the 1970s in a band called the Dictators. Blum had assumed the name "Handsome Dick Manitoba" and was allegedly demanding, under threat of legal action, that Snaith immediately stopped using the Manitoba name. Having taken legal advice, Dan studiously ignored this until Handsome Dick actually carried out his threat in the shape of a law suit. Dan caved in, deciding that however ridiculous Handsome Dick's onslaught might be, a new name and a new beginning would not be such a bad thing after all.

It's axiomatic in journalistic circles that that whilst "Man Talks to Bear" does not make a headline, "Bear Talks to Man" does. Alright, that more usually involves dogs and biting but bears and talking better fit my thread here.

The story goes that Dan's novel method of finding a new name was to take an acid-fuelled walk in the woods with some friends, where he encountered a bear. The bear obligingly told Dan that he should call himself "Caribou".

I heard a podcast interview with Dan Snaith in which he was asked whether he could verify this preposterous tale. No, replied Dan without a hint of irony, there were no woods. The rest was true.

Thus Manitoba became Caribou.

Take One…

Andorra is Dan Snaith's fourth studio album and the second to be released under the Caribou name. Amongst various attempts to pigeonhole Snaith's musical style and genre it has been categorised as electronica, noise pop, indie electronic and pyschedelia. It is predominantly electronic to be sure, but that's not immediately obvious on first listening to Andorra. It's certainly less apparent than it had been on the previous Caribou album, The Milk of Human Kindness, which most listeners would have placed readily in the dance/electronica rack. Initially, much of Andorra seems to comprise traditionally-structured pop songs with a late 1960s feel to them but it soon becomes evident that the sweet little melodies are swathed in complex layers of electronica.

Comparing Andorra with Caribou's previous album, it soon dawned on me that there is a definite progression here. There is a new homogeneity of sound and presentation; the music is tight and assured, fresh and vital. There is a maturity that Snaith's music lacked, just slightly, before.

This album mixes the psychedelic sounds of the 1967 summer of love with the dance and techno of the 1990s to produce something that is unique and without doubt a creation of the 21st century.

The first couple of times I listened to Andorra I tried to work out the band's line-up. Obviously there was a very able percussionist, a bass player, at least two guitarists and an accomplished keyboard/synthesizer/computer player and programmer (presumably Snaith himself) as well as a vocalist, backing vocalists and players of various other instruments such as flute and trumpet. Quite a crowded studio then, I thought.

And I was completely wrong. The truth is that Dan Snaith created the whole thing himself. In his bedroom. When he goes out on tour he takes a band with him but when he makes an album it is entirely a solo project - instruments, vocals, mixing, producing, recording, the lot. He creates hundreds of tracks and records them to his computer hard drive in the little flat in London where he currently lives. Added to this, most of the music on Andorra comprises first takes. There's no agonising over which of dozens of attempts at a song is the one that's good enough to make it onto the CD - just play it once and store it on the hard drive is Dan's method. He then sets about mixing and layering the hundreds of recorded tracks to create songs that sound as if they are played by a full band.

Watch Me Falling Apart…

The music on Andorra has an upbeat, life-affirming, mood-lifting quality that makes me want to listen to it again and again. I wanted to see how the lyrics sat with this but there are no lyrics provided with the CD, nor are they reproduced on the Caribou web site. On listening to the CD, only some of the lyrics are discernible and those gave me the impression that they decidedly take a back seat to the music; an idea reinforced by Snaith's apparent reluctance to have anyone read them.

Trawling the web, I eventually managed to piece the lyrics together. I was taken completely by surprise: these are not happy songs at all, for without exception they tell of lost love and disintegrating relationships, emotional frustration and doubts, endings rather than beginnings.

I half-wish that I'd been a bit less diligent in pinning down the lyrics (mainly in the interests of keeping my Ciao readers properly informed, I might add!) because I still think that my initial view that the lyrics are very much secondary to the music was right. In my view, knowing what he's singing about just tends to add an unnecessary veneer of gloom. Best not to take it too much to heart, I think; watching Dan fall apart is not what this album is about for me.

Track by Track…

1. Melody Day (4.11)

No messing; Caribou launches straight into the opening song at full tilt, all drums, tambourines, guitar, bass and vocals together, making an entrance like a bull in a china shop. Though in truth, this bull is more of a benign bullock than a marauding monster; fresh and frisky, yet somehow familiar and friendly too. More instruments make their entrance: keyboards; a swirling flute; Dan's voice sweet and strong on the melodic vocals. Can he really be playing everything here? And in his bedroom?

At first this song called to my mind the sound of late 1960s Beach Boys or Love. But on listening again more carefully and comparing this with something recorded in 1967, it became clear that this sound could only have been created with the benefit of a posteriori knowledge (as any philosopher will tell you); that's to say an accumulated awareness of the music of several decades, not least the electronic music of the 1990s.

The sound is upbeat, happy and danceable but the lyrics tell an altogether different tale. Here's a sample:

Melody day where have you gone
And the hope I had is dying
And what we had has come undone
Then your smile it melts away again

Three quarters of the way in, the music comes to a dead halt before the falsetto chorus is picked up again and the song finishes in what sounds like an improvisational jam. And Dan Snaith is probably the only musician I know of who can have a jam session on his own.

A strong, immediately involving start to the album; I'm impressed.

2. Sandy (4.09)

The pace slows just a little for the second track. This song, if stripped of its electronic layers, would be right at home on an album like Love's Forever Changes and although that was recorded over forty years ago, I mean this very much as a compliment. This is a wordier number but I can't help but find some of the lyrics a little awkward -

Now I'm divided like a flock of birds when excited
And picture circles in the sky
You can't believe me
Like all of the others who leave me

- and once again there is that air of rejection and slight desperation about it all.

As for the music, there is some echo coupled with that technique known as backmasking (where instrumentation is played backwards) and a high-pitched vocal, layered over a weighty and deliberate percussion. There are some distinctly Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies too; something that, in the knowledge that this had been recorded by one bloke in his bedroom, raised a slight smile. The construction of the song is deceptively complex; all very well, but what really wins the day is the fact that Snaith can write a darned good tune and this is a prime example.

3. After Hours (6.15)

Treated guitars swooping and swooshing back and forth between the channels make for an arresting and compelling opening to a song with a more overtly modern electronic feel to it. That 60s psychedelic sound lingers on though, lending the song a continuity with the earlier tracks as it moves through reverb and geeky twiddling, firstly to a gentle guitar-picking version of the main motif and then on to a dreamy, echoing vocal, all underpinned by some nifty breakbeat/jungle percussion.

On the lyrical front it's back to pining and hand-wringing but this time it somehow feels more appropriate, if still a little clumsy in places:

And in your summer sky and in the air
Have you forgotten how you got us here
While I remember how much I care

The second-longest song on the album at a little over six minutes, this finishes very effectively with a cycle of repetition in the style of a musical round (several Dan Snaiths harmonizing again) and finally a few bars of acoustic guitar almost as an afterthought. This song easily warrants its extra length and for me is one of the stand-out tracks on the album.

4. She's the One (4.00)

A doo-doo-dooing vocal intro (yes, Dan's harmonizing with himself again) evokes another of the predominant sounds of the 60s, the soul group, but this soon leads into another Beach Boys-style vocal. This is much less obviously electronic music. The vocals are sweet, the arrangement lush, the whole song melodic and unashamedly romantic; before long there's even a string section (synthesised, presumably) making an appearance. On the doo-doo-doo backing, almost imperceptibly, Dan's voice is morphing into a female vocal: how does he do that?

Lyrically, it looks like poor Dan's gone and lost another girl:

Call her thief, call her shallow and insincere
'Cause you'll never see just how perfect she could be
Then she's gone and my friends could come along
And they tell me that I'm happier

I can't say that very melodic, romantic songs are usually my cup of tea but this one works for me. And the more I listen, the more the complexity of the layered sound that cossets the gorgeous melody becomes evident.

5. Desiree (4.12)

I'm beginning to notice by this point in the album that Snaith's singing voice, which takes prominence over the instruments for much of this song, just seems to get better and better. There's a delicate touch to the vocals on this one; sensual and far removed from geekdom. And this time the music has a melancholy feel to match the lyrics, which again appear to bemoan a failed relationship:

There's nothing left I can say
To stop it ending this way
I think you wanted me here
To watch it all disappear

The song stops briefly about three quarters of the way through and out of the lacuna rise synthesized strings and a tinkling, ice grotto sound reminiscent of Sigur Ros until the track fades away. There is a discordant, "noise pop" element to the song but I don't think it would intrude enough to trouble anyone who is just after a good tune and to my mind it adds a texture that rescues the track from blandness.

6. Eli (3.05)

By this time you probably won't be surprised that, for Dan, all is still not going swimmingly in the romance department:

She'll push you until she can see you unwind
She will tear you apart just as soon as you let her

Eli is a slower-paced number with a more conventional pop/rock sound, based on guitar and drums. It still has that sixties psychedelic feel to it but it's the more sober side of psychedelia.

I suppose that three quarters of the way through an album is about as inconspicuous a place as any to stick a weak track and that's where this one is hiding. It's a pleasant enough song but I find it just a bit pedestrian. After listening to the album many times, it's really only the brevity of the song (at just over three minutes) that relieves the temptation to skip to the next track.

7. Sundialing (4.40)

The dry, spare sound of drums in a persistent, tribal rhythm is joined by a swirl of flutes before eventually the echo-treated vocal enters the song. The layers of sound swell and retreat, rise and fall. Instruments join and leave; a flute here, a guitar there, while the hypnotic percussion remains relentless through to the final, ethereal notes.

The lyrics are pretty much incidental on Sundialing, most of the track being instrumental, but once again Dan appears to be dealing with a fragile relationship:

And when we meet
My mind is making promises of you
And when you go, I know you know
It breaks my heart in two

If you took a mixture of the music of Jethro Tull and Jefferson Airplane, overlaid percussion by Third Ear Band and electronics by Air, then had the whole thing remixed by FourTet, you just might end up with a song something like this. Sundialing puts the album back on track after the relative disappointment of Eli. There's even better to come though.

8. Irene (3.38)

A drunkenly out of kilter melody weaves wistfully through the splutters and hisses of late 1990s-style electronica while a synthesised drumbeat and keyboards move slowly between the left and right channels. A trumpet sound forlornly picks up the tune before the short vocal section makes an appearance half way into the track.

This time the lyrics speak more of uncertainty; the fear of loss rather than loss itself:

You should know better anyway
The way that you say you'll never go away

Although the sound here is heavily electronic, with the volume shifting up and down and the sound swaying from speaker to speaker, the flow of the beautiful, mesmeric tune is never lost as the music fights its way out of melancholy.

The song seems teasingly short and always leaves me wanting more; definitely one of the star tracks on Andorra for me.

9. Niobe (8.51)

I'm all in favour of saving the best till last and in my opinion that is emphatically what Caribou has done here. Initially the song settles into the lysergic wooziness that characterised some of the earlier tracks as Dan repeats the line "I fall so far" like a mantra. Only one other line rings out clearly:

Will she be waiting when I call, will she be there?

Then the music takes a new direction, gathering pace and excitement. Liquid sounds bubble under dry percussion, sporadically breaking the surface to fizz and spit their little electronic melodies as the track builds in several distinct waves; each time running to the very brink of climax and sustaining it like the musical equivalent of multiple orgasm. As it finally winds down I feel almost as if I should be sitting on the side of the bed and lighting a cigarette.

Niobe frankly doesn't have much of a tune and much of it sounds like an electronic take on free-form jazz, driven along on percussion. At nearly nine minutes, it's long enough to outstay its welcome for some. I know at least one person who thinks I've taken leave of my senses to rate it so highly but nonetheless I love it enough for it to gain a place in my all-time top twenty songs.

Buying Andorra…

Andorra comes as a single CD in a fairly minimal package. The cover art, by the photographer Jason Evans, features an abstract arrangement of yellow flowers and vegetables against a woodland background.

Fellow Canadian Jeremy Greenspan (whose band, Junior Boys, has often toured with Caribou) is credited with co-writing and co-producing "She's the One" but otherwise Dan Snaith is responsible for just about everything on his own, for which he modestly allows himself the briefest mention in tiny print on the back of the cover insert.

If you're lucky enough to have a branch of Fopp nearby, you can pick up a copy of Andorra for just £5 at the time of writing this. Online, you can currently save 1p on that price at Play.com and Amazon are offering it at £4.98.

And Finally…

The psychedelic/electronic mix seems to be quite popular at the moment, with bands such as MGMT and Animal Collective producing their own, different takes on it. I think that Andorra is more likely to appeal to true fans of electronica but it is also accessible to some extent to a mainstream audience in search of a catchy tune; it's probably just as likely to grab fans of early Pink Floyd as it is those who like Boredoms or Boards of Canada.

I've mentioned a number of other performers throughout this review by way of reference and comparison but I'd like to stress that Caribou is not in any way recycling old music or aping other musicians. The sound of Andorra is fresh and unique. A significant contributory factor in this is the amalgam of subtleties and complexities that permeate the multi-layered sound of the album and for that reason it deserves to be listened to on decent audio equipment to make the best of it.

You'll probably have guessed that my favourite track on Andorra is Niobe, but Irene, Melody Day and After Hours are also in the running. It's an excellent album throughout, with the possible exception of Eli, the point at which Andorra momentarily seems to me to be running out of steam. I would like to have seen Eli replaced by something more adventurous (and perhaps experimental) but others may disagree and it remains a five star album for me in any event.

By the end of Andorra I feel that I want to give Caribou a round of applause. Dan Snaith is a composer and performer to be reckoned with: not a man who talks to bears but a man to whom bears talk.

Copyright © 2009 David (Mitsudan on Ciao) 

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