In recent years Dan Snaith, performing under the alias Caribou has become something of omnipresence in ambient electronic music. Lending his vocals to the likes of DJ Koze on 2013’s ‘Track ID Anyone?’ and much of his recording history to countless artists who have attempted expand on many of his ideas, Caribou has appeared to be in constant demand, despite his last full length release being as long ago as 2010, the much acclaimed and often sampled Swim.
Four years later and much anticipated, Our Love is a glorious expansion of the experience and influence that have shaped a genre-spanning career.
Our Love is undoubtedly ambitious, perhaps more so then any of Caribou’s previous records. Yet his attempts to marry such a multitude of influences do not feel in any way forced or unnatural. Each sample, synth, drumbeat and melody is exactly where it should be with almost mechanical precision without the affect the records overarching sense of fun. Opening track ‘Can’t Do Without You’ encapsulates much of the albums later vigour, fluttering marvellously between subtle melodies and the cusp of something much more intense. The record’s title track and focal point contains a careers worth of experimentalism into five and a half minutes of magnificence. ‘Our Love’ is a restless, multifarious adventure that transpires gloriously through electronic ambience, smooth house beats and concluding quite fantastically with a string quartet.
Whilst at times eclectic and intense, Our Love is at no point an imposing or uncomfortable listen. Indeed what Snaith has done so ingeniously is create a record that is both experimental and yet consciously similar to his previous work and as such a familiar experience. The result is a wonderfully enjoyable and entertaining, record that is certainly Caribou’s most complete to date. Moreover, if it is to receive a similar degree of attention from DJs and producers as Swim, Our Love will no doubt be dissected, recycled and reproduced in a multitude of ways for months if not years to come.