Interview
Prague Post
March 5, 2008
The blissful electronic melodies of Caribou, the alias of Canadian producer Dan Snaith, put a personal spin on sunny ’60s pop — psychedelic beauty, blinding sunshine and lyrics about all-consuming attractions to beautiful women. It suggests a certain easygoing demeanor, but it would be a mistake to assume that Snaith is as laid-back in the studio. A devoted musician who relishes the chance to solve a complex melodic puzzle, he spent a year on his latest album, the lush Andorra.
“I was more like a mad scientist than a sociable musician,” he says about the long recording process in his apartment. “I started maybe 600 tracks over the course of the year. If you consider that I ended up with only nine, most of that time was spent being frustrated.”
Snaith’s background suggests a certain caliber of intellectual firepower. His father and sister are math professors, and he received his PhD in an abstract branch of mathematics, algebraic number theory, in 2005 in London, where he now lives. But if there are comparisons to be drawn between computational and compositional processes, he says, it’s in the area of creative problem-solving.
“It’s like learning scales on a piano,” according to Snaith. “You learn the logical framework, and then you can forget that and think about things in a more creative way.”
Raised in the rural college town of Dundas, Ontario, Snaith didn’t get into electronic music until he received a tutorial in techno and jungle from his friend Koushik Ghosh, who now records hazy, sublime beats for the left-field Stones Throw label. Snaith began making his own tracks when he was 14, using a keyboard he bought after convincing his parents to give him a few years of Christmas and birthday money upfront. He improvised when it came to software, plugging into his father’s relic of a computer to sequence tracks.
“It’s funny how little my method has changed over the years,” he says. “I’m still recording things via a computer, just little bits and pieces.”
The music may have been cobbled together, but it made an impact. Snaith started recording under the Manitoba moniker, dropping two highly regarded albums — the clinical and chopped beats of Start Breaking My Heart and Up in Flames, a more kaleidoscopic effort that began his transformation toward sanguine pop. His popularity also set in motion a bizarre 2004 trademark case, with washed-up punk rocker Handsome Dick Manitoba claiming Snaith was trading on his (mostly nonexistent) name recognition. Rather than spend a fortune on legal fees, Snaith simply switched his name and soldiered on. He’s repeatedly said that he came up with Caribou while sitting in a field, tripping on acid.
In addition to switching aliases, that period also saw Snaith become a much more formidable presence onstage. The bedroom producer is now a road warrior, having undertaken a series of extensive tours with a live band. He plays an array of instruments, and often doubles up on drums. Andorra reflects this synthesis of the production and performance craft.’
“The whole challenge was writing pop songs focusing on melodies and harmonies,” he says. “I wanted songs with that excitement and emotional lift.”
His most pop-oriented set of music yet, it still manages to sound loose, lived-in and organic. It’s well beyond a formula.