Caribou "The Milk of Human Kindness" (Domino)
By Brian Moore
Thursday. Jun 02, 1:34 AM
Curatorial ability to creatively borrow from the past and still look toward the future.

Dan Snaith, the musical wiz behind Caribou (fka Manitoba), released his rapturous Up in Flames in 2003 to the delight of eager IDM lap toppers and prescient music critics everywhere. It was an ingenious album that channeled the euphoric playfulness of ‘60s psychedelia, Brit-inspired shoegaze, blissful California pop, and his trademark percussive assault. The record's undeniable warmth and uplift led to its overarching accessibility and ultimate success. So on top of the success of the record, big tours with the likes of Four Tet, Stereolab, Broadcast, and Prefuse 73, and a PhD. in Mathematics on the horizon, it was indeed a good time to be Dan Snaith (then Manitoba). Who would want to stymie such virtuous accomplishment and momentum, you may ask? Try Handsome Dick Manitoba, formerly of The Dictators. Blindsided by a lawsuit in which Handsome Dick sought the copyright to the name "Manitoba," Snaith was legally forced to change his moniker. And thus, out of the absurdity, Caribou was born. Undaunted, Snaith offers up another intriguing and dynamic collection of songs with his latest, The Milk of Human Kindness.

As his first album under his new name, The Milk of Human Kindness is a clear point of demarcation from his prior Manitoba work. If Up in Flames was the Dionysian party in the sky, then The Milk of Human Kindness is the after party: the still smoldering embers falling down to the earth’s cool soil. In this new incarnation we find Snaith continuing to explore the curious archives of classic rock detritus like the propulsive Krautrock of Neu! and the psychedelic prog/art-rock of Soft Machine. Snaith also references more contemporary artists like the experimental, folk-inspired instrumentation of Animal Collective and the melancholic beats of DJ Shadow. Gone is the comfort and sun bursting ecstasy of Up in Flames and in its place is a meditative and swirling journey through pop music’s vast subconscious.

The Milk of Human Kindness picks up where Up In Flames left off, with the rollicking opener "Yeti." A pounding organic house rhythm (tambourine and bass drum) is set beneath Snaith's diaphanous vocals, as a Rhodes piano adds a soulful melody (sounds a lot like Brian Wilson's "Barnyard”) to the verses – a double drumkit attack drives the song into a dizzying frenzy. "Subotnick" reads as a found basement tape of a long forgotten R&B band and leads into "A Final Warning," a seven-minute hallucinatory ride (think “Revolution #9”) through luminous peaks and dark valleys of cascading orchestra sounds, sweeping synth-phase flourishes, and shamanistic tribal drums. "Bees" similarly builds from a repeating, lightly chugging blues-guitar line, light vocals, and blossoms into polyrhythmic psychedelia. "Hello Hammerheads" is the atypical track on the album, as Snaith sings a melancholic verse over a gently plucked guitar conjuring up an eerie Elliott Smith aesthetic. "Brahminy Kite" sounds like Simon And Garfunkel alongside a group of drum majors furiously pounding away as if intoxicated by the miasmic madness. Perhaps the gem of the album comes in “Drumheller,” a short but extraordinarily beautiful track that shows off Snaith’s ability loop a baroque string sample with distant blazing drums and a guitar arpeggio. He then delves into DJ Shadow territory on "Pelican Narrows" with choppy start-stop drum hits, handclaps, and chamber-like piano. Finally, "Barnowl" is a fitting end to the circuitous head trip that is …Kindness: the energy and momentum of the album finally spills over into a blissful yet resolved realm, as the intense drum attack and spiraling melody make one last climb toward the light.

Though not the orgiastic candyland of Up In Flames, The Milk of Human Kindness proves no less powerful: perhaps more cerebral and chaotic. With this album, Caribou proves that he is one of the most dynamic and interesting laptop, IDM, folk-tronic, whatever-you-want-to-call-it musicians out there. He is part of a genre that is getting increasingly exciting with equally excellent artists like Cornelius, Four Tet, and Matmos to name a few. Caribou’s curatorial ability to creatively borrow from the past and still look toward the future is an effective and winning formula: one that makes for what is becoming a great artistic output.
www.caribou.fm
www.dominorecordco.com

Brian Moore

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