SWIM by Caribou

Dan Snaith has pulled a fast one on us.  He's convinced the world that with Swim, he's created a dance album, albeit one with some great melodies and moments of genuine emotion.  What he's actually done, of course, is create a dance album that you're not supposed to dance to.

I didn't "get" this album straight away, like a lot of my friends and most of the music press seemed to.  I'd quite enjoyed Andorra, the previous Caribou release.  Parts of it reminded me of early Pink Floyd, which is not a comparison appreciated in some quarters but there you go.  Swim is a big change of direction in some ways, but not so much in others.  The biggest transformation is the inclusion of a pounding electronic beat in almost every track, which is the main reason for the "dance album" tag the record has received.  But the omnipresence of that beat is the very thing that makes you forget it is there.  Behind the wall of (admittedly tasteful) electronics that Snaith has erected around his songs, there is still the recognisable influence of psychadelia, and the backgrounds of shifting melody become all the more apparent through their juxtaposition with the pulse of the synthesisers.

The first couple of times I heard this album, the beat was what dominated my listening experience.  It could be that's because I don't actually listen to an awful lot of beat-heavy music, but whatever the reason it took me a few listens to hear everything that was on the recording.  The flute and horn parts on the tracks Kaili and Hannibal; the reverbed, staccato guitar part on Found Out; the warm woodwinds on Leave House and the ever-present mixture of acoustic and electronic percussion make for a much richer listening experience than I'd originally realised, something that seemingly everyone else had cottoned onto a long time previously.  Most importantly, Snaith's plaintive vocals remain the emotional core of the music, summed up by an extraordinary section on the track Lalibela where he seems to be channelling a form of Gregorian chant backed by electric organ.  Awesome. 

Dance music is a functional artform.  It's meant to make you move your body; it's designed to provoke a physical, kinetic response.  Despite appearances to the contrary, Dan Snaith's main focus is still songwriting.  He has co-opted the techniques of dance music to accomplish his ends, but they're merely more colours on his palette.