Caribou

Daniel Snaith (stage name Caribou) is a Canadian electronic musician whose eclectic take on electronic music combined with psychedelic folk has yielded quite a fantastic result.

I am highlighting Snaith not only because of his musical prowess, but also because of his abilities in areas outside of music. Snaith, or more appropriately, dr. Snaith has a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College London, his thesis being on the topic of Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols.

The album I am looking at is the recently released one, Andorra.

Highlights:

Melody Day: If you take 1960's psychedelic group The Electric Hole and revise it by adding distorted electronic beats you get what Caribou obtained. It is a rather bizarre, slightly schizophrenic release because the song seems to defy classification: On one hand it is psychedelic rock but on the other there is a distinct modern feel to it.

Melody day what have I done
Now our hearts are locked up tight again
And when I pray it's all begun
Then your smile it melts away again

The music video mimicks the characteristic acid-trips of the 60's.

Irene: Low-key song with a very fine introduction where Snaith experiments with volume regulation, which adds the feeling of the music being produced at the instant (because real instruments do have their irregularities). He then proceeds to add a trumpet, vocals and other instruments to his ménage électronique.

I am not updating the blog for a few weeks since I am off to London to teach some courses in mathematics and chemistry. See you in August!