Neon Wilderness

by Jeff Terich; photo by Candice Eley

06.05.2005





The world of Caribou is one of unpredictability. It is
a world where hip-hop drum machine exercises can
coexist in harmony with lo-fi acoustic recordings;
where Neu!-inspired kraut-grooves can hold hands with
dense psychedelic freakouts. And everything is named
for a critter, mythical or otherwise. Here there's a
Yeti. Over there is a Barnowl. And just around the
corner is the domain of Lord Leopard.

But the man behind Caribou is Dan Snaith, a humble,
unassuming Canadian with messy hair and glasses. He
has no antlers, as far as I could tell, and doesn't
look the part of mad scientist, though if he had been
wearing a lab coat, he might be able to pass as one.
Nonetheless, he's a regular joe who just happens to
create some of today's best electronic music, as heard
on his latest record, The Milk of Human
Kindness.

As I spoke to Snaith underneath low-flying jets on San
Diego's Laurel St., I suggested that his new record
sounded a little more hip-hop influenced than before.
But having produced the album without a specific sound
in mind, Snaith didn't completely agree.

"It's funny," Snaith said. "People tell me opposite
things in different interviews. One person will say to
me `this is more of a singer-songwriter driven album.'
And the next person will say, `this is more hip-hop.'
It is a varied album, which I'm happier with, because
it kind of reflects that I was doing lots of different
stuff and it still sits together. And I like the fact
that it's all over the place.

"This time it was kind of about each instrument in the
mix and trying to figure out how to arrange the songs
really well. Whereas Up in Flames was really
psychedelic and I just threw everything in there and
left it however it ended up. In order to do something
different, there was no way to be more sloppy and
psychedelic. But it made sense to take some of those
ideas from Up in Flames and be more careful
about where everything goes."

Live, Snaith takes on songs from his three studio
albums as a trio, a guitar player and a drummer
rounding out the touring incarnation of Caribou.
Snaith, himself, however, does everything from cueing
samples to drumming to playing keyboards. The end
result is surprisingly dynamic, more like watching a
rock show than a DJ set. Cartoons scroll by, behind
the trio as they pound out an intense set, giving an
added visual treat for onlookers. Live electronic
music, apparently, has come a long way from the days
of two guys with samplers.

"It's worked really well," Snaith said of his live
performances. "I've been kind of surprised, because we
just take the tracks and take the individual parts and
what are the most interesting parts we could be
playing and what could still be samples. It's worked
well backwards, like taking a record and turning it
into a live show. I guess when I'm making the tracks,
I'm thinking about where it's building tension, and
thinking about it in terms of how it would be played.
I'm thinking about how tracks build. I'm just
conscious of other music I've heard that has that live
feeling of tension and release. The thing I like about
the way I make music is that it doesn't have to — I
mean, it does sometimes sound like a band is playing
it — but it doesn't have to. I think that's good. I
don't ever want to be like `oh, this track doesn't
have a bass part' or `that's too fast for an
instrument to play.' There's no reason to look at it
like that."

One thing that you won't see a lot of at a Caribou
show is live singing. Though Caribou songs tend to
feature more vocals than typical electronic and
sample-based music, they're not absolutely essential,
according to Snaith.
"The lyrics are just garbage usually," Snaith
confesses. "As long as they're not embarrassingly bad,
and they kind of have the sound of the words and they
fit the sound of the music. I listen to music and I
never ever know a single word of the lyrics. I never
pay attention to that. I know the way the words sound,
but I guess I'm far more thinking to myself in terms
of being a producer and the sounds making up the
record than in terms of vocal-led music. But the
lyrics are almost irrelevant."

This is interesting to hear from Mr. Snaith's mouth,
as his own use of vocals is every bit as interesting
as his combination of instruments and samples. On
"Barnowl," the closer to The Milk of Human
Kindness, the vocals are spare, with Snaith
breaking words down to their syllables, abandoning his
vocal approach altogether, however, for the majority
of the song.

Meanwhile, the acoustic "Hello Hammerheads" is a
surprisingly straightforward, yet hypnotic ballad from
Caribou. The phat beats, kaleidoscopic samples and
dance grooves are almost nowhere to be found. And
vocals, though still subtle, take center stage.
Snaith, himself, was quite surprised at how the track
turned out.

"It's weird that I made that song, actually," Snaith
said. "I sat down and recorded it in forty-five
minutes. I wrote it and recorded it, start to finish.
And then I was just like `what the fuck?' And there's
so much of that new folk-sounding stuff around and I
just felt like ` I don't want to do that kind of
shit.' But I did that and it sounded so much different
than everything I've done – there's so much space,
where usually there's no space. And the melody's
really good. But it's kind of a fluke that it's on
there. I'm super happy with it. It's so different from
what I normally do, but it fits on the album in kind
of a weird way."

There's no telling what Caribou will be up to in the
future, but chances are it's going to be pushing the
limits. Whether he teeters closer to conventional song
structures or to beat-friendly electronic dance music,
Snaith will find a way to warp whatever music we've
grown used to into his own twisted creation.

"I'll only be working on music that's interesting to
me," Snaith said. "And if I feel it's too much the
same territory as the last record, then I'll just get
kind of bored with it. And I kind of feel I've done
those ideas already. So I'll probably just keep
changing, because of that."