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 CARIBOU’s Dan Snaith, the equivalent of raw sunshine in music form, speaks to self-confessed fanboy MITCH ALEXANDER about his upcoming performance at GoMa’s Warhol exhibit. Laughs are had, large words are uttered, but admittedly it gets off to a shaky start…
Seriously, could there have been a more awkward way to begin? “Oh hey Dan, are you ready fo-” crashedycrashedychrashbreak! “Oops,” I say. “The wind just knocked over some cups in my kitchen” Cool and calmly, as only a Canadian is born to do, Dan Snaith responds with “yeah, it sounds like if someone pressed a button titled ‘kitchen noises’, that would be the effect that came out”. I do feel some remorse towards lying to him, but I wasn’t going to incriminate myself further with the truth. “Oh, that was the sex gong our apartment has… it just fell down after sitting precariously on a window sill. How fun!”. And for those that don’t get the Scrubs reference behind the gong… well, get the hell away from me. Since 2001, Dan Snaith, known to the indie kid on the street as Caribou (a reindeer/elk/moose creature found in Canada) has released album after album of glitchy, dreamy, noiselicious burst of electro-pop. Have you ever woken up and thought ‘this is possibly the happiest I’ll ever be in my life’? Yeah, Dan’s pretty much recorded that feeling and converted it to compact disc. In this time, he’s even managed to receive a PhD mathematics, so while your average rock star could barely get through their multiplication tables, Mr. Snaith could tell you pretty much all there is to know about Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols. The word you’re looking for is ‘impressive’. When I told my brother that I landed this interview, he told me to inform Dan that he’d “totally go gay for him”. I didn’t tell him, but at least everyone who reads this article knows. 2007’s Andorra, apart from being a constant presence in many critics top tens, was one of Dan’s most enjoyable albums to record, although he doesn’t like to choose. Fair enough, how would your children feel if you told everyone you loved your youngest kid the most? “I will say it was the most challenging, which is what I look for”, says Dan diplomatically. “It’s the one where I’ve spent the most time focusing on writing fully constructed pop songs, or as pop as I’ll ever get” Brisbaneites (Brisbaneans? Brizvegasites?...) will get a chance to hear these new tracks and earlier walls of joy at Andy Warhol Up Late soon, when Snaith brings his band along, as well as a stunning lights show which always holds a few surprises. “It’s a bit different to the animations that were made for previous albums, as amazing as they were, they meant we were very stuck to a specific song structure,” explains Snaith. “Now it’s kind of the other way around…what we play can effect what happens on the screen, so it’s never the same”. And, segueing nicely from visual style, how does Mr. Snaith rate Mr. Warhol, for whom GoMa has gone great lengths to show off? “Interestingly, I’ve always been a bit on the fence” he says. “But last week I was watching this documentary about his earlier stuff and had a new respect for him… definitely more leaning towards his earlier commercial works”. I guess I was looking for a juicier condemnation (or praise, I’m flexible), but it probably wouldn’t be wise for him to bag out his next pay cheque. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a gong-related mess to clean up… CARIBOU will be injecting aural happiness into the soundwaves at the Gallery Of Modern Art on Friday 18 January as part of Andy Warhol Up Late. ANDORRA is out now through Merge/Shock Records. Buy it, but only if you never want to be sad.
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