Interview: Caribou

Twenty-four hours have not yet passed since Caribou came off stage at London’s Scale and I’m still struggling to come to terms with the whole experience. The ease with which Dan Snaith explains makes you quickly realise that he has barely broken a sweat in the process. One of the most thrilling live acts around today and he doesn’t even realise it.

It’s a far cry from the lonesome, one man and his laptop, live persona of old. “It’s supposed to be the opposite of me on stage with a laptop because I got tired of those shows. There’s now as much going on as we can do with three people. In the last two and half years we’ve all developed both playing together and individually and it went from live not being the focus at all to now being half of what I do. I now spend a year recording and a year touring.”

Caribou’s latest offering The Milk and Human Kindness has taken another step to dispel the myth that any music created on computers is devoid of classic pop sensibilities. Like it’s predecessor Up In Flames, it is bursting with melody. Dan agrees: “ My music is made on a computer and out of samples so in some sense it’s an electronic record. But I just think that’s not an issue anymore, in the same way that neither is whether people are experimental or not experimental. I think when I started or even before that there was a chip on peoples shoulder that it wasn’t cool to have a melody in your song and that you had to be overtly experimental. I think that’s gone by the way side. There’s so much good music that’s both pop music and totally experimental, weird music at the same time.”

While the development between albums has appeared seamless, the change of name from Manitoba to Caribou was anything but. Just under a year ago Handsome Dick Manitoba- a former Wrestler and lead singer with seventies outfit The Directors - brought legal action against his electronic namesake. Unable to risk pursuing a defence, Caribou was reluctantly born. “It was massively frustrating, there’s no question about that. It was one of those things that once I realised there was literally nothing I could do to fight it- I didn’t have the resources to do it even if I wanted to- I just got on with it. At this point it seems so long ago and everything has gone so well since. But definitely at the time it was frustrating having some fucking dildo tell me I had to change my name.”

Touring is currently all that dominates the horizon. However having just completed a maths PhD in London, it is baffling that Caribou is only now a full time project for the first time. “I haven’t had a chance to enjoy the extra time yet because we’ve been touring constantly. Starting next year it’s going to be the first time I’m devoting all my time to making music and thinking about music. I’m really excited about it and wanting to do other projects but definitely not writing anything in stone at this moment.” Expect Dr. Snaith to be getting his teeth into a lot more projects in 2006.