What's the Shape of Caribou to Come?

My heart skipped a beat when I saw Caribou’s new track pop up in my Spotify feed. I’ve been a big fan of Dan Snaith for over a decade now, and each one of his releases has been incredibly inspiring.

Home took me by surprise. Opening with a salvo of big beat drums and soulful guitars, I admit that’s not the comeback track I was expecting from the EDM auteur. It would have been more suited on an album by The Avalanches, along a track like Because I’m Me.

So, to sum up, not bad at all. Just not what I expected…

Since the stellar Our Love, Snaith as explored house music in a sophisticated way with his side-project Daphni. As the years went by, I even thought this might be it for Caribou. If he even ever was to come back to his electro-pop project, it would probably be in a weird hybrid between the two projects.

It would’ve made sense. A lot of artists produce darker and more minimal work as they age. Think of Caribou’s co-conspirators Radiohead, for instance. Going from Swim to Our Love was certainly a move in that direction. But Home is as sunny and upbeat as anything on Swim. There’s even a psychedelic instrumental bridge thrown in for good measures.

If it’s any indication of what’s to come for the band, Home promises some pretty darn uplifting material for Caribou’s album. Much could be said of the way Snaith utilizes Gloria Barnes’ sample. The invention he displays by filtering it out, applying delays and expanding on it in a way that feels new, and yet totally his.

Without conceding the warmth of the original, Dan Snaith pulls it in his own left-field universe. There it sits in plain sight, gloriously.