marino

"crayon"

all this caribou talk has gotten me hot and bothered, and i've spent the better part of the last hour and a half rewatching the marino videos, all of which are happily found on youtube. the videos, all designed by irish collective delicious 9, were originally backdrop visuals, but were so good (no joke) that they were collection for dvd production, and bundled with 4 songs from the milk of human kindness's sessions.

i think delicious 9 have really captured a beautiful part of caribou's essence - "jacknuggeted" and "pelican narrows" especially capture the music's optimism and naivete, that sense of everything feeling new and rather exciting. one of my favorite features common to most of the videos is their thematic link - the characters all belong in a conjured world with dancing canaries, organ-pounding grandmas, and xylophone-rocking teddy bears, a world i could certainly use a lot more of. the videos, of nearly every song on both the milk of human kindness and up in flames, are almost without fault. "hello hammerheads" and "a final warning" shade in the darker parts of caribou's music, the latter an animated rollercoaster ride to the other side, the former a redemptive, if mischievous, look at sacrifice. "hendrix with ko" is, as one commenter puts it, "muppet slander," and is one of my favorite videos, along with the adorably-animated "skunks."

i feel it's a shame that the best praise i can give marino that it's worth your money. i think these videos are an important part of caribou's overall aesthetic, and super fucking cute at the same time. this feels a lot more like art than just music videos or projections.

watch them all here, and marvel, marvel at their awesomeness!

"marino"
buy marino from the leaf label. (do it, cheapskates!)

"jacknuggeted"

caribou & fuck buttons @ bowery ballroom, 3/28/08

even a casual reader of this blog will be aware of the fact that i am a superhuge caribou fan. they won the inaugural "band i blogged about most" title, clocking in with six individual posts, and though this is their first '08 entry, i've lost none of my rabid fervor for dan snaith's psychedelic electronica, which is why i returned to see them yet again. they have been on tour pretty incessantly since andorra's release last fall, and i've seen them three times since then, so i didn't think they'd have much new work to bring to the table, just their plain old awesomeness. but i was wrong - dead wrong. in their downtime (what downtime?), snaith and one of caribou's touring members have reworked all of their projections, and refashioned many of their songs - necessary changes when you hit the same cities twice in six months, but still pleasantly surprising. but the best change caribou could've made for this tour is the inclusion of the peerless fuck buttons, for whom, i wager, more than a couple people were there to see.

music aside, fuck buttons have been able to wring an extrraordinary amount of press from their name alone, a verbal vortex that no reviewer can resist (myself included). it's good that their name invites such controversy, because they don't offer much in the way of lyrical bones to pick - whatever it is that comes out of benjamin john power's mouth is definitely not distinguishably verbal. their name is as much a part of their enigmatic musical persona as much as their cosmic distorto-jams, and everyone has weighed in on fuck buttons's nomenclature (it sounds almost regal, doesn't it?) without coming to much in the way of concrete conclusions. well, there was no way the twinkly knob-twisters were going to explain themselves, especially without a microphone of their own. yet fuck buttons spoke in volume, creating staggering, deafening swaths of melody and static from itsy-bitsy instruments, subjugating the crowd (and making them dig for their earplugs) right after the first climax of "sweet love for planet earth." as far as i could tell (considering i don't have street horrrsing memorized), they played that album in its entirety, if slightly compacted. no breaks, no stops, all fucking awesome. as their set progressed, power and bandmate andrew hung became more and more involved in their admittedly limited show, their movements taking on a semblance of ritual, fierce and deliberate head-banging and body-waving, the music coursing through their bodies as it did ours. honestly, if you haven't bought a copy of street horrrsing yet, it's really time to do so, and go out and see the band: 40 glorious minutes of cataclysmic triumph in decibels; since mogwai isn't making anyone's ears bleed lately, maybe fuck buttons are taking up the reins. more power (and volume) to them.

caribou: awesome. the surprises (new projections and a couple drastic song reworkings) didn't really affect the show as a whole - they were exciting little morsels, making the show richer as a whole, but not really any different than previous caribou shows. however, that doesn't make it boring - it's not like i've been dragged to see them, caribou fucking rocks live, and they delivered an excellent show once again. the unison drumming is always exciting, and "skunks" especially benefited from it. "bees," as always, blew the place apart, and encore "every time she turns round it's her birthday" was, appropriately, the best part of the night. what set this show apart from previous caribou experiences was twofold, i think. they were blessed with a great soundman who really understood the band's nuances, but i think the most potent element of caribou's set was the influence of fuck buttons. interestingly enough, i felt like caribou was pushing themselves extra hard as a response to fuck buttons's egregious volume, and that energy was overwhelming. it could've also been that dan snaith celebrated his 30th birthday that night (technically, during "every time," as the clock ticked over to 3/29), but caribou were at the most jubilant, their most wildly exuberant, and the show was fantastic.

i went to four concerts last week - why?, crystal castles, del, and caribou - and the one i was least excited about was also, hands down, the best one. i expected the usual from snaith & co., and something cool from fuck buttons, but we were treated to a great night (all the better, from my perspective, with the loss of dan friel. parts & labor = gag). don't ever pass up the chance to see caribou.

"melody day" (from the pink room sessions)
pick up the new she's the one single from merge.

buy street horrrsing from atp.

i swear this is the last caribou post of the year

it's been a very good year for caribou, especially on mr. mammoth, earning daniel snaith & co. the prestigious "most times written about by a blogging prehistoric mammal" award. most enviable. well, i'll break it to you now - andorra ain't ending up on my year end list. as you probably recall, i wasn't all that impressed with the album, but caribou's live show is something else. a couple months ago i told you about the pink room sessions, a full set caribou taped and put on their youtube page, and the audio has finally been ripped from it, and i've got it right here for you. caribou is still somehow touring (the guys are like a machine!), with their sights set on japan and australia for 2008. jesus, dan, i don't know how you do it.

the pink room session (originally recorded for youtube)
sandy
after hours
skunks
sundialing
she's the one
twins/bees
eli
melody day
barnowl

download the show as a .zip here.

don't forget that you can buy andorra from merge.

scope out this caribou action!

daniel snaith is a man with a plan. and part of that plan is conquering the internet. i'm really exhausted right now, so i can't reveal the full details of snaith's machinations, or come up with much cleverness to tell you about this news, so i'm just gonna put it out there.

caribou taped a whole show at the pink room (wherever that is), and have put all the videos on their youtube page. their touring odyssey continues, and if they haven't played your town yet, they probably will soon. keep on keeping on, daniel snaith.

caribou - "melody day (four tet remix, featuring luke lalonde, adem & one little plane)"

buy andorra from merge.

"skunks" @ the pink room

the go! team & caribou @ abc, 9/14/07

well, this has just been the week for supercharged schoolyard funk and neo-psychedelic melodic effervescence, hasn't it? the week was bookended by two caribou sets, one as a headliner in a small club in glasgow, and the other as an opener in one of the biggest clubs in glasgow, and the release of the go! team's sophomore proof of youth, and a set as a headliner in one of the biggest clubs in glasgow. overkill much? ...perhaps.

abc is not only one of glasgow's biggest clubs, but also one of its most prestigious. it has two spaces, abc 1 and abc 2, where some of the finest names in independent rock have played - i myself have been three times, and saw the decemberists w. two gallants, slint, and the go! team w. caribou. tearknee has has seen the decemberists, guillemots, and art brut. definitely a respectable list. but for all that, abc is a pretty shitty venue. abc 1, that is. abc 2 is great, a tiny little shack of a room with a short ceiling and comfortable stage, a space that doesn't murder your ears or make the band feel like its drowning. tearknee and i agree that the best shows we've seen at abc have been at abc 2. abc 1 is another story entirely.

abc is quite proud of their main space, which holds up to 1250 people and features what they call "the best in house lighting and sound systems of any similarly sized venue in europe." well, if that is the case, then whoever is operating said light and sound is an idiot. besides being crushingly loud, abc 1 has the laziest and least-flattering lighting i have ever seen. you might think i'm being a little obsessive about lighting, but i have a reason: in my non-mammoth life, i'm a theatre tech and lighting designer, so i do know a bit about how lighting works. however, whoever does it for abc clearly doesn't. less than one week before the show, caribou headlined a show at the arches, a small space (the room we were in was max capacity 120), yet the lights were excellent, not only for caribou, but for their opener as well, an extremely unknown local artist. yet abc 1 couldn't be bothered to show even the basest courtesy to caribou, drowning them in hideous pink/blue light for the entirety of their set - all 40 minutes, saturated in repulsive light. i felt sincerely ashamed for caribou, but the indignity of their set didn't end there. you might recall how much i liked caribou's visuals when i saw them on monday, how fluidly they became an essential part of the show. despite the presence of an enormous screen behind the band, there were to be no caribou graphics - that honor was reserved for the go! team, and only the go! team. needless to say, that was extremely disappointing for me, who had seen how impressive caribou was in the right space, and just a tragedy for the rest of the crowd who missed out on their great multimedia display. too bad that wasn't the last of abc's sins.

abc is the type of venue that has club nights after live gigs, and insist that said gigs must be out by 10 pm, so their security literally kicks you out the door when the show is over. so, in their great wisdom, they deemed it a good idea for caribou to go on at 7.45, when doors had been at 7 pm. last time i had been to abc, we had arrived when doors opened, and waited over an hour for the opener, so we thought it was safe to do the same this time. not only did we arrive late to caribou's set, we missed the whole set of the first opener, the suzan. i suppose it was foolish of me to expect doors to be an hour before the show started (disregarding, of course, the fact that such is the practice of hundreds of venues), but i was not alone in my assumption. abc 1 was nearly empty when we arrived, as late as we were, but had at least quintupled in size by the time the go! team went on at 8.50. i assume the idea behind having caribou (a headliner in their own right) open for the go! team was to create excitement and buzz about caribou, who are relatively unknown compared to the go! team. yet by putting them on so early, abc swiftly defeated that goal, simply because so few people had arrived to hear their set. in addition, caribou is not a band i would normally associate with the younger crowd (there's a reason the arches show was 21+, after all), yet the promoter felt that caribou would be an appropriate opener at an underage show. it didn't really work out well.

deprived of their immaculate visuals, cursed with a lazy, colorblind light operator, and pushed on far too early to a meager, young crowd, caribou's performance reflected the clear obliviousness and lack of respect abc offered them. and though their set lacked the vibrancy and enthusiasm that monday's had, the blame for these shortcomings lies entirely at abc's feet. robbing caribou of anything approaching a regular stage presence, abc literally murdered any chance that caribou had at performing well. in a proper space with a proper crowd, caribou is excellent. on friday night, caribou was a victim.

the disgraceful way abc had treated caribou left me with a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach for the rest of the evening. even the strutting confidence and boundless enthusiasm of the go! team couldn't right that wrong. but it did cheer me up a whole lot.

hurtling on to abc 1's ginormous stage (seriously - you could put the whole polyphonic spree on stage and still find space for a good jackie chan fight), the go! team were psyched, pumped, and ready for action - unfortunately, the crowd wasn't. it took at least four songs for the team to get the crowd moving, in spite of ninja's constant entreaties to sing, dance, or visibly enjoy the music. in fact, despite front-loading their set with some of their best/most famous songs, the crowd seemed stiff and generally unresponsive to the go! team's charms at least until the set's midpoint. rattling through material drawn from both thunder, lightning, strike and proof of youth - including a detour to "a version of myself," a b-side from the new album, the go! team overpowered the crowd's initial standoffishness and had me worried about the integrity of abc's flooring by the show's end.

that's not to say that their set was without fault. as they had with caribou, abc 1 proved itself to be without a competent soundman or light operator, botching the team's mix and refusing to give them anything remotely approaching front light. ninja was nearly unintelligible throughout the show, while their piped-in samples often drowned out the live instrumentation - often, the only clear sound was that of ian parton's harmonica, which he played with hugely satisfying enthusiasm (how often do you see someone headbang with a harmonica in their face?). the lack of front light (and tired use of the same yellow light program in the back) meant that the go! team was only marginally illuminated, bathed in light similar to that which had so ruined caribou's set. the blue tinge infected the entire stage, a shade so boring and nauseous that it nearly ruined the show, not to mention the go! team's carefully assembled visual display. backed by a screen taller than my ceiling, the go! team's projections varied from the bizarre to the mundane, sometimes thematic (like monkeys riding bicycles) but generally not, and were always entertaining.


on the whole, the go! team were great, throwing themselves into the performance and firing up a mostly dead crowd to one that screamed itself hoarse and danced till it got stitches. their set was played at breakneck speed, racing from the mostly instrumental "flashlight fight" (sans chuck d) to the set ending "titanic vandalism," though the crowd was most excited for the final encore, "ladyflash." as always, one of the best parts of the show was ninja' inspired dance moves, ranging from the athletic to the laughable, and, while her repertoire seemed inexhaustible, she kept asking the crowd for some new moves for this tour, and they seemed happy to oblige (at least by the end of the set). i'm looking forward to their show at potterow in a week, where they (hopefully) won't be plagued by bad lighting and terrible sound.

caribou - "melody day"

the go! team - "huddle formation"

caribou @ the arches, 9/9/07

i went to the caribou gig monday night with as much of an open mind as i could muster, but the evening seemed destined for disaster from the start. my worries were five-fold, from the mundane (are they going to play any old stuff?) to the practical (will it end in time for us to catch the last bus back to edinburgh?). in addition, try as i might, i hadn't been able to find out who the opener was (or how many there were), and the man who sold me the tickets that morning has cautioned that he had sold only ten others. i had nightmarish visions of caribou storming off the stage in disgust as the twenty person crowd looked on, dismayed. this lack of sales was no doubt compounded by caribou's epic tour odyssey, which brings them back to glasgow next friday to open for the go! team. so, when we arrived to learn that the opener (still unnamed) would be going on at either 8.30 or 9.15 and that the crowd, while more than twenty, wasn't all that much more than twenty, my fears for the worst became my expectations of the same.

fortunately, i was completely wrong. the last time i had been so happy to be wrong was when i thought i was going to fail my p.e. class and not graduate (i passed, and graduated). the opener turned out to be a lovely guy, graeme j. d. ronald, who performs under the name remember remember; the crowd swelled, and while it was by no means a sold out show, we were enthusiastic and appreciative; caribou played a great deal of old stuff; and i started writing this review on the horrible and bumpy bus ride back to edinburgh. so i was 0-for-4 with the worries, and i couldn't be happier about it.

i'd never heard 0f remember remember before last night, but you better believe i'll be paying some close attention from now on. his two-and-a-half song set, lasting close to twenty minutes, was definitely not enough. clearly somewhat frightened and stage-shy, remember remember nonetheless kept his crowd silent and standing stock-still as he showed us how to play beautiful music with children's toys, all by yourself. all you need is a wind-up monkey, a pair of scissors, some off-and-then-on tempo handclaps, and seven or eight looping pedals.

the one man band gimmick is quite popular nowadays, from stoner heartthrob keller williams to hipster (and mr. mammoth) darling owen pallett, not to mention daniel snaith himself. while performing as a one man band isn't always the easiest thing (thus caribou's four man live act), remember remember pulled it off like it was no thing. instead of merely creating a part for each instrument in a band's regular arsenal (guitar, bass, drums, etc.), remember remember proved that we were going to be treated to something special when the first sound he looped was the "plunk" of a coin being dropped into a glass of water. toy instruments are all the rage right about now, and remember remember followed the trend, filling his table with eight or ten little noisemakers and a child's xylophone. the xylophone was often remember remember's main melodic device, and he crafted these melodies by playing several short phrases and layering them on top of each other. his only traditional instrument was a guitar which he played in the same fashion, which was absolutely spellbinding. usually an opening act can't buy the audience's silence, but the arches was respectful and attentive throughout his set, enraptured by his delicate and hypnotic music.

one reason i was so enchanted by remember remember was his imaginative musical use of household hardware. using, in succession, a tape measure, clear tape, and a pair of safety scissors, on top of his abstracted guitar picking and ringing xylophone notes, remember remember's soundsmithing was something to behold. without a label and seemingly based exclusively in glasgow, it looks unlikely that remember remember will be able to break anytime soon, but the charisma of the four tracks available for download on his myspace is so apparent that any forward thinking label should want to snap him up right away. hopefully we'll be hearing much more from remember remember very soon.

however soothed and happy i felt during remember remember's set, it quickly was replaced by anxiety as daniel snaith and the touring members of caribou took the stage. a regular reader of this blog will remember how disappointed i had been by andorra, and as a result, of all the fears i had had for this show, the greatest was that we weren't going to hear any old songs. and, for the first couple songs, that seemed to be the case. the set opened with "sandy" and "after hours," which, despite being some of andorra's best songs, are, in fact, cuts from andorra and not up in flames (caribou's best work). i grew trepidatious. however, in the middle of "sandy," i began to come to a realization, one that i only fully reached during caribou's second song, and it was this: live caribou isn't the same as studio caribou. a dazzling feat of deduction, i know. whereas snaith must work like any one man band in the studio, carefully layering looped sounds on top of each other, the exhilaration of a full band - guitar, bass, drums, not to mention snaith's own kit, keyboard, and array of glitchy toys - transfigures the caribou sound entirely.

whether limited by the equipment available or freed from its restraints, live caribou very nearly sounds organic. the heavy reliance on the quirky electro-squeals of caribou's studio work is replaced with dueling drums (in perfect unison), a heavily distorted mic, and an occasional flourish from one of snaith's gadgets. all of their songs, not just the andorran variety, sounded fresh and reimagined, even if it hadn't been necessary. the unexpected vibrancy of the caribou sound in situ ensured that all their songs sounded new and familiar at the same time. when all was said and done, caribou performed more older songs than new ones, not only putting that fear to rest but playing almost everything i wanted to hear (where was the lord leopard?). and even though i knew the songs they played, from "skunks" to "eli" to the penultimate climax of "twins -> bees," the aural difference between live and studio caribou kept the songs even more exciting than they had been before.

this show had a lot of high points, and they weren't just from the songs. as thrilling as their rendition of "barnowl" that was more of a drum-off was, what made caribou's set so exciting was the actual content and performance. with so many concerts, i find that i get the most enjoyment from hearing my favorite songs played. but the changes in the caribou sound meant that i couldn't hear the distorted harmonies in "crayon," the set-ender, or that "melody day" lost some of its recorded charm, leaving me occasionally stranded in the middle of songs. but this was reconcilable. i found my greatest pleasure in watching snaith's feet pump up and down on the pedals of his drum kit, the tinkle of "crayon"'s xylophone, in the sheer aural assault of the two drums playing at once. i did, of course, enjoy the songs, and was visibly cheered when caribou launched into "every time she turns round it's her birthday" as their encore, but watching the performance was just as exciting as listening to it, something i definitely hadn't been expecting from a psychedelic glitch-pop outfit. even a song like "she's the one," which sounds tired and trite on andorra, sounded good with the addition of a new guitar part.

as much as i dig the sound of caribou in my headphones, a live caribou is just as rewarding, not only aurally, but visually as well. i had known that caribou traveled with their own projector and visuals, but had somehow assumed that they would be similar to the marino videos, quirky visual epithets that use the songs as a departure point, not a plot element. well, we weren't treated to any animation or stop-action filming; what we got instead was a barrage of colors and shapes that flickered, mutated, and changed in time with the music. this might be small potatoes if the songs were performed just as they were recorded, but they weren't. while caribou obviously couldn't indulge in any live improvisation, many songs were longer and more intense than their recorded counterparts, yet the visuals were in time here as well, clearly displaying the fact that caribou had spent some serious hours in the a/v studio.

so, do i prefer live caribou to the recordings i've come to know and love? no. there will always be something unique about specific albums and their personal, emotional meanings that a live performance could never replace. but caribou's show monday evening was still something special. the visuals, the drumming, the excitement of not knowing exactly how songs you love will end up sounding - these elements all contributed to the quality of the show. but the best part of it for me was enjoying it so much that i put down my camera so i could just listen. that doesn't happen very often, especially now that i take this blogging stuff so seriously, and the fact that i turned it off and stowed it in my pocket says something about how good it was.

buy all of your great caribou stuff here. catch them on tour from now until pretty much forever.

caribou - "barnowl"


"melody day"

pitchfork strikes out again!

since starting mr. mammoth, i've made an effort to keep my public relationship with pitchfork cordial. i mean, they were really important a few years ago, and i know i got introduced to some seriously good artists because of them (even though it took me a little while to take their opinions with more than one grain of salt). however, i really can't stay silent any longer. i think the sluts' practice of referring to them as bitchfork is more than a little puerile, but pitchfork (pitchdork?) has become so unbearably intoxicated with their self-ordained position as preacher of indiedom that the only reason to look at the site nowadays is for news. still, i do get suckered in by their reviews and the best new music section - after all, they are fucking iconic. but as of two days ago, i decided i'd had enough.

pitchfork has always taken a rather odd approach towards classifying what is the "best" of new music, arbitrarily awarding the "best" label to albums that tend to be more controversial than actually outstanding. before i learned better, i bought several albums based on pitchfork's say so, only to feel as if i wasted my money (which i had). this year's best new music list already numbers twenty-five, which doesn't include their "recommended" releases. true, lots of good albums have been released this year, but pitchfork increasingly seems unwilling to cut through their often self-generated hype and call a spade a spade (or a mediocre album a mediocre album). the newest addition to the best new music category has really been the last straw for me. maybe pitchfork is using this category like the oscars, when good actors get the award for bad movies, as a way of apologizing for not giving earlier work appropriate praise. at least, that's the only reason i can guess at for pitchfork's inclusion of caribou's new effort andorra on that list.

the man responsible for andorra's review (and BNM nod) is mark richardson, none other than pitchfork's managing editor! aside from that, i know nothing about him except that he prefers to contextualize the album, as if by namedropping other bands he can cover up the plain and simple fact that he doesn't really know anything about this album (like, for example, that it's not very good). pitchfork's reviewing m.o. seems to be that modern sound can best be described through its similarities to older music: thus, we get richardson's exhaustive list of artists caribou sounds like, in the first paragraph. yet for all of richardson's exhaustive referencing, andorra doesn't really sound like the beach boys, the mamas & papas, or the zombies. it sounds like caribou. ultimately, by opening his article with a deluge of RIYL: caribou artists, richardson proves nothing as much as his own inability to confront andorra's obvious failings, disguising this with a hollow trumpeting of caribou's current "AM radio" sound.

by no means is this richardson's only fault, yet he blunders through the article without bothering to question andorra's innate quality, or his own hypotheses. for example, he casually refers to andorra as the first time that "[caribou] seems to be paying attention to chords and melodic progression first." now, i'm not exhaustively versed in caribou's back catalog, but as a proud lover of two of his previous albums, up in flames and the milk of human kindness, i would consider myself rather familiar with his style, and if there's one thing daniel snaith (the man behind the mammal) doesn't lack for, it's melodies. his previous works have been stuffed full of melodies, from the antsy toe-tapper "lord leopard," to the joyful and climactic "bijoux," and i would go as far to say that andorra actually contains fewer snaith melodies than we've come to expect. perhaps richardson feels that one melody per song is enough - that alone explains his deep affection for the oft-repetitious andorra. but for those of us who have been keeping track of snaith's artistic (and melodic) progression, this effort seems lacking.

as a writer (and a recent college graduate), i've been known to make some fairly substantial diction errors, but the outrageous metaphor that richardson uses to open his fourth paragraph trumps even my worst ones. referencing "desiree," andorra's midpoint, richardson shares this totally arbitrary metaphor: "we know from her name that this girl might trip down the streets with the association's windy, perhaps looking for kicks or waiting for mary to come along." call me a cultural boor, but fuck me if i know what the hell he's trying to say there. come on mark, let's use some english. try this on for size: "'desiree' is, at its heart, the closest snaith comes to a stripped down soulful ballad, the antithesis of the image he has worked so hard to cultivate over his three previous album, a song so devoid of both lyrical and musical content that one usually enjoys andorra more by passing over this track (and the next one) to 'sundialing,' one of the album's best songs." a bit long, i know, but i wanted to get it all in one sentence (and you should see the length of some of the ones richardson spits out). a few sentences later, we see this gem: "then there's 'sandy' and 'irene," also [like desiree] names more likely in 2007 to belong to grandmothers." wow. mark, thank you so much for your input on trends in naming! how valuable this comment has been to my understanding and enjoyment of andorra. (i wikipediad the association; forgive me if they're familiar names in your household, but i think referencing a song that hit #7 in 1966 as common knowledge is is a TAD arrogant.) furthermore, richardson makes the baldly audacious claim that the name "desiree" automatically "dates it perfectly," as if no one named desiree could have been born after 1966 (untrue, as one of my sister's friends is named desiree, just for the record).

one reason richardson finds this album to be so delightful is because of snaith's unprecedented reliance on his own vocal cords. while i need not remind you that both up in flames and the milk of human kindness did include singing, it is true that, in andorra, snaith uses his voice in a new way - as that of a "proper" songwriter, as richardson claims. i fail to understand how caribou could have released three albums without being a songwriter - maybe richardson can only fully understand songs when they are carried by a voice - a severe failure for a music critic.

indeed, it is plain to almost any ears that andorra is a step backwards for caribou, an unwarranted, unnecessary, and unwanted change in what has otherwise been a distinguished career. while retaining some parts of his previous sound (though not as many as some would hope for), caribou has been completely overhauled, generating an album that does not seem to have logically followed the milk of human kindness in the slightest.

ironically (to my ears), what mark richardson praises the most about andorra are its biggest failures. we've already discussed the vapid "desiree," one of richardson's favorite tracks, and while we agree that "melody day" is probably andorra's best song, he feels as if "sundialing" is a misstep by snaith, a tired "return to the repetitious neu!-isms" of his last album, i believe it to be one of the few cuts on this album that actually sounds like caribou.

regardless of andorra's innate quality, mark richardson's review is pathetic. while demonstrating a complete lack of appreciation for the caribou sound, he also takes it upon himself to add illogical, arbitrary, and ridiculous addenda to most of his statements; we've already seen his comments on names like "desiree," "sandy," or "irene;" there are many richardson asides that are superior even to these. for example, here are richardson's thoughts on caribou's buoyant and joyful sound, his very hallmark since start breaking my heart: "a half-decade after the elephant 6 movement first started to fade, snaith's move can be seen as risky, but it succeeds, oddly enough, in part because of the one-man-band nature of his project." where to begin? with richardson's need to say "half-decade" instead of "five years"? or maybe his ability to disregard all of caribou's previous output of high-energy electronic joy (which is six years old, therefore pre-empting the "half-decade" of decline elephant 6 has experienced)? in fact, because richardson puts all of his references to past caribou albums in the first paragraph, it begs the question of whether or not he's listened to more than one song off each. from his glowing endorsement of andorra, it seems unlikely.

caribou - "sundialing." buy andorra here.

caribou - melody day

this video has been making the rounds, but i like it so much, i want to post it here. "melody day" is the first single from caribou's upcoming album andorra, to be released on the 21st of this month, and the video was filmed on the beautiful beaches of sweden (who knew sweden had beaches?), right outside ingmar bergman's backyard. "melody day" is the first live-action caribou video i've seen, and it's fucking amazing. before andorra comes out, i want to do a caribou/manitoba retrospective, with particular emphasis on the marino dvd and ep, as they are so frequently overlooked. personally, i don't think snaith can ever top up in flames, and i blame "handsome" dickweed manitoba for killing the beauty that was manitoba, that shithead (manitoba isn't even his real last name!).

in any event, here's "melody day" for download and the video. the song is good but not great, but the video is goddamn superb. i'm really psyched for his show next month.

caribou - "melody day." pre-order andorra here.