Swim

Swim finds Snaith diving back into pure sequencing, but the result is his strangest and gutsiest work yet.

His music really is art for the ears, with hues, colours, textures and aural brush strokes dripping with vibrancy and imagination.

For a dance music album, Swim sounds not only refreshingly organic, but also remarkably downbeat. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the way that Caribou have succeeded in marrying up these two things and still managed to make an album that is infused with a rhythm, a groove and a watery loveliness all of its own.

Much like Four Tet's recent switch in focus towards club-friendly sonics, Caribou's Swim leaps into fresh, uncharted territory for the producer, but nonetheless retains the artist's unmistakably inviting and lovable style.

Though a few more outbursts could've given Swim more punch, it stays afloat-austere, chilling and beautiful.

Despite his chameleonic tendencies, Dan Snaith retains his singular identity as an artist--and Swim is a reminder that even at his most challenging, the man's compositional capabilities can dazzle.

The Canadian math whiz and artist formerly known as Manitoba proves he's just as calculated as he is cerebral, crafting music that feels equally clubby, fluid and submerged to back up the ideal album title.

Caribou's newest set, "Swim," which contains more electronic elements than its pop-traced predecessor, is a major step forward for Snaith.

While some songs may become tedious, like the lengthy "Hannibal," the album as a whole is a great addition to the Caribou discography.

Dan Snaith goes liquid disco on his fifth album. [May 2010, p. 96]

There is, unquestionably, a mass of fortitude at work from the creator throughout.

Though Swim is less referential, the artist that does come to mind in these sprawling pieces is Arthur Russell, whose outsider disco and house featured warped cello and ghostly vocals.

Repeated listening softens Swim's clinical edge, and when closing track Jamelia explodes with emotion, the thought occurs that if Snaith's next album picks up where this leaves off, it will be extraordinary.

Returning to psychedelia of a more modern variety after the Polaris-winning 'Andorra' saw him pegged by some as a '60s revisionist, electronic whiz Dan Snaith's latest offering is a triumph to top even that masterstroke.

While no single track quite matches Four Tet's 'Love Cry', it's as good overall as his contemporary's recent 'There Is Love In You'.

That Caribou is still hitting the bull's-eye on a moving target is no surprise, but that he's done it with an emotional heft beyond what he seemed capable of in the past makes this album feel like a personal victory as well as a step forward.

Swim is quite dark; this is definitely pop of the bedroom sort, and despite Snaith's vocals usually being indecipherable, buried underneath hissing drum machines and meretricious synths, there's a pervading sense of intimacy to the whole thing.

With Swim, Caribou has transcended the confines of indie pop and electronica.

So even though you could call this move toward the dancefloor a surprise, Swim retains all the qualities that make Snaith and Caribou so impressive. It just dresses them up for a night out at the club; no, make that a great night out at the club.

It is his most beguiling release yet. [May 2010, p.85]

With Swim Snaith finds success focusing his most complex notions and freeing his most straightforward ideas.

Snaith is able to hold onto his Caribou identity despite the new techno influences. His new album Swim reaffirms the supreme artistic capability that is Caribou.

As mesmerising as it is innovative, Swim is a record you want to dive in to. [May 2010, p.120]

His relapses into techno abuse are few here, and even in those clubbier depths, there's a thoughtfulness under it, building on the dreamier visions of Andorra.

Other songs exploit vocals more overtly, but the words still never quite feel like the point, oblique and fuzzy, couched in landscapes that have far too much else going on.

The excess of high quality B-sides released between past albums suggests that this concision is purposeful choice, but it also allows less room for error the course of a disc. As per usual though, Caribou carries through pretty deftly, striking far more often than he misses.

Swim sets the more developed tunecraft that Snaith has practiced on recent records to his first set of dance grooves in half a dozen years. When it works, it speaks more accessibly than anything else he's done, and also attests to his growing ability to snag your attention without throwing all of the kitchen sink's contents at you.