Dan Snaith can trace the origins of his solo recording project Caribou to the theft of an unused sampler from his high school’s music department program. Snaith originally began writing and recording under the moniker Manitoba — that is until Richard “Handsome Dick” Manitoba sued him over the use of the name, and Snaith rechristened his project Caribou. And as Caribou, Snaith has released a number of critically acclaimed albums while developing both a national and international reputation for a wistful, yet shimmering, groove-heavy sound — that interestingly enough has managed to mesh electronic pop production, hip-hop beats, heavy, house music-leaning bass and psychedelia, among other things.
Our Love, Snaith’s sixth, full-length effort was released back in 2014 and if you’ve been frequenting the JOVM over that period, you may recall that I wrote about the album’s first single “In Our Love,” a track comprised of skittering drum programming, a distorted vocal sample and wobbling synths as a slow build up to a a coda that becomes a flashy house music club banger with layers of cascading synth stabs. The album’s latest single “Can’t Do Without You” is comprised of a soulful and distorted vocal sample, which turns into the song’s infectious hook paired with handclap and snare-led percussion, gently undulating and buzzing synths as the song’s groove slowly bubbles through the song’s conclusion. Much like Octo Octa‘s Between Two Selves, Caribou’s latest single manages to possess a brooding and soulful thoughtfulness.
The recently released music video for “Can’t Do Without You” follows a little boy as he runs in front of and then with an enormous dragon balloon in super slow motion. You can see pure, unadulterated and childlike joy on the boy’s face and it’s absolutely infectious. But what also catches my attention is the beautiful colors on the dragon as it passes by the boy, leaving him alone and grasping for something that he can no longer have.
