Photograph courtesy of Thomas Neukum
On Facebook at the moment, you might have seen folk nominating their friends to list their top ten favourite albums. They often make for interesting reading, as you can generally spot those who have done exactly that – listed their favourite albums without pretence – with those who have used as it as an exercise in showing off eclectic tastes; the more obscure the better. It must be tempting for artists taking part in this website’s Baker’s Dozen feature to do the same – after all, we’ve all witnessed the griping BTL when yet another Dylan or VU album gets the nod.
"I wanted to put more obscure records on here, some of the rarer things I’ve got," confesses Dan Snaith aka Caribou, maths boffin and musical genius; teetotaller and Canuck settled in London. "But then I thought, I shouldn’t really just put something on here to show off that I’ve got it."
Instead, the list we get – while featuring many records that are appearing in this feature for the first time – has definitely come straight from the heart. Snaith has eclectic tastes, but when you listen to his extensive back catalogue, which now encompasses seven albums and various EPs under his Caribou, Daphni and Manitoba guises, you can hear echoes of the artists and bands included in his Baker’s Dozen. The only albums that aren’t properly represented by the list are his last two, 2010’s breakthrough Swim, and the recent, awesome Our Love. But there’s a reason for that.
"I’ve been listening to music for so long and being really obsessive about it, particularly in my early 20s, that it’s become harder to find albums that I really love that I didn’t know before," he explains. "I thought I was still an album person, but I realised that I don’t listen to albums as much as I used to. I still listen to music when I’m recording, but it’s mostly lots of old disco 12"s and rare soul records."
That statement shines through when you consider Our Love. It still sounds like a Caribou record, but it is definitely the most dance-centric and soulful record that Snaith has made under the moniker, referencing Chicago house, electronic R&B, Arthur Russell and the man himself’s recorded excursions as Daphni, with a firm grasp of dancefloor dynamics honed by marathon DJ sets, and the odd flute solo informed by a lifetime love of prog.
"It’s by far the most personal record I’ve ever made. It seems like the most natural thing to me in my life, having had a little kid [a daughter in 2011] and been releasing music for 14 years – those things made me take stock and think, ‘What are the most important things to me? What do I want to be in my music and say with my music?’ And not just the lyrics, though they’re far more personal than ever before – I wanted to have that sense of warmth and sharing that I hear in those Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders records [artists that feature in his BD]. That’s something new for me, because I’ve always been more inward looking."
It was the joyous response to Swim, Snaith’s weirdest and most idiosyncratic album, but also his most popular – so far – that has imbued him with the confidence to make the record that he wants. It makes perfect sense that a positive reaction to one record can shape how an artist approaches the next one. You often hear musicians say that they make music primarily for themselves and if anyone else likes it that’s a bonus, but the feeling here is that Snaith is doing the opposite – he is opening up to his audience and making a record for them, but about him – like a loved-up raver sharing his innermost feelings and thoughts.
"It’s funny, but I always used to be the guy who was the cliché, who just makes music for himself. It’s true to an extent, but I also think that part of the reason why people say that is that there’s this perceived tension or contradiction between artistic integrity and doing what you want and on the other hand, a more populist idea of wanting to share something. Part of our assessment of music is that there is that division – you’re either doing one or the other. The reason why I felt like making this record is that I didn’t feel that tension or contradiction. Swim was my most personal record, yet it was the one that translated more than all the other albums previous to that. That was such an affirmation. It means I don’t have to choose anymore. If I want to make music that’s more generous and outward-looking, I can."
Of course you can’t please all of the people all of the time. There are still some (myself included at times, I confess) who might watch The Pink Room sessions on YouTube and long for that vintage of Caribou – the dude who made the free-form, kaleidoscopic psychedelia of Up In Flames and the Krautrock/60s pop-inflected The Milk Of Human Kindness. Snaith has a considered response.
"I totally understand that and sympathise with people who’ve been listening to my records for a long time. The people who say, ‘I liked what you were doing in the past.’ I’ve had lots of bands that I have that feeling about – that diverged from what I really liked about them. First of all, you can’t chase those things. You’re playing a game that you can’t win. But also I feel like whenever I sit down to make a record, there’s only one record that I can make. It might not be obvious what it is at the beginning but it’s in there and it’s coming out. That’s probably illusory to some degree, but if I sat down and tried to make another Krautrock/Silver Apples record, I feel like it wouldn’t work."
Getting back on subject, it is clear that Snaith spent a lot of time considering and choosing the records on this list.
"A lot of these albums are so evocative of a particular time in my life when I really loved that music and invested a lot of time listening to it. These are the ones that I listened to over and over again. I don’t do that so much these days, maybe because there’s so much music around. I’m not sure. The experience isn’t the same for some reason. Some of them have been with me for a long time, which makes sense because part of what I love about them is that they are embedded in my life. In some ways this list represents the music that I grew up with. These are the albums that have been the bedrock for me."
Our Love is out now on City Slang/Merge. Caribou plays the Warehouse Project in Manchester tomorrow, before touring Europe and the US; for full details, head to his website. Click on his image below to begin scrolling through Dan’s choices
