Caribou - "Andorra"
Caribou - Irene (Merge 2007)
Caribou - Andorra / Merge
With the Melody Day EP now appearing and Merge beginning their late-summer push for the fuller, conditions feel right for a Caribou review. Ah, Caribou. Dan Snaith, the incomparable one-man bliss-pop army out to avenge his defeat to Handsome Dick Manitoba three years ago. By equipping himself with some of the most infectious and joyfully oblivious poptronic products in the entire existence of said style, Snaith has become a reference point for plenty of people with laptops and a love for The Beach Boys. Not that there weren't already a few out there, but Snaith has somehow managed to elude mediocrity partly because he knows when to hit it and when to quit it; in keeping with that, Up in Flames might be acknowledged as the archetypal Caribou album, but the nine-song Andorra that he's been working on since early '06 makes a strong case for the best Caribou record yet.
In between 2005's The Milk of Human Kindness and the August release date for this album, Snaith has constructed a live show with the help of Delicious 9 and not a little musical handiwork from his backing band, all to good effect. It feels like that backing band had some effect the other way around on Andorra, because it feels more like a band is playing this album than in the past when Snaith could cleverly (and effectively) disguise his largely solitary efforts. "Melody Day" is the lead-off single and opening track; as a raison d'etre, it works effectively with dreamy vocals harmonizing perfectly in between the spaced-out psych-pop awash in summer cymbal sunshowers. "Melody day, where have you gone?" asks Snaith... But the answer is as straightforward as the flute fluttering about. It's as prominent here as it's been anywhere else. The melodies are simply irresistible as "Sandy" duly proves on the following track. Robert Palmer would be proud in a roundabout way.
Of course, Caribou may not have appealed to you in the past. Snaith's freeform palette-plastering psych-pop glittering with all things flower-child was at times mercurial and at its worst little more than white noise in disguise. My argument for that is, if you're willing to listen to something that seriously sounds straight out of 1967 but with just a lemon-twist of modernism, you're ready for Andorra. The additional touches of krautrock on a track like "After Hours" reveal just that little bit more about this guy. You keep wanting it to be boring, but Snaith never lets a good idea wear out its welcome. "Sundialing" is a good example, running its full rise n' fall at just over four-and-a-half minutes.
"She's the One" is a subtle nod to a less organic past as Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan lends his breathy vocal talents to a song that always feels like it's going to erupt into this ebullient acid trip but instead cleverly continues at a controlled pace, defying expectations and pleasing the ear all the same. The verve in the sparse vocals of "Irene" is another brilliant moment toward the end of the album, well-placed as a quiet breather and a set-up for the understated "Niobe," a whimper to end a banger of an album.
For a long time I wasn't really impressed with Caribou. I didn't think Snaith was anything special and that most of his tricks had been honed, what, 30 years ago? But Andorra has led me to rethink this position. Rather than viewing him as an ordinary electro-psych-pop player with a shrewd knack for melody, I've come to see Snaith as a guiding light for anything with a psych label on it. And that's kind of why he's here. While we don't review Merge records too often given their stature, Caribou stands as both a flattering example and a noticeable exception to their Institutionalized Indie paradigm: By bringing people to Andorra, it's possible we can take them beyond that if they haven't already gotten there. Jan Dukes de Gray, Kemialliset Ystävät, First Nation, there's no end to the possibilities, the world of opportunity and wealth of knowledge Dan Snaith can open up. Nestled deep in the Pyrenees, it's hard to imagine a nation less likely to sit in such a unique position.