CARIBOU: THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS (2005)
1) Yeti; 2) Subotnick; 3) A
Final Warning; 4) Lord Leopard; 5) Bees; 6) Hands First; 7) Hello Hammerheads;
8) Brahminy Kite; 9) Drumheller; 10) Pelican Narrows; 11) Barnowl.
This is Snaith's first album recorded under the
name of «Caribou», but the name change was triggered by the threat of a legal
suit rather than any artistic reasons — Snaith's musical essence stays precisely
the same. Well, not precisely: third
time around, there's even more vocals, and it kind of becomes obvious that the
man is trying to gradually shape his imaginative textures into pop hooks,
moving from amorphous abstractionism into discrete abstractionism. This is kind
of like a kids' room in MoMA now — happy colors, odd shapes, friendly
disposition, psychological manipulation. You sure feel safe and warm in a world
like this, but you don't even begin to truly understand it, because... well,
just because.
The very first track is called ʽYetiʼ, but it neither
features Tibetan musical influences nor is in any way related to the dark
psychedelic jamming of Amon Düül II. Instead, it is a very lightweight soft
techno-pop number, dominated by a shiny electronic riff and overdubbed with
various silly sound effects. If it is indeed supposed to be a musical portrait
of a yeti, it is quite a politically correct one — in quasi-real life, an
actual yeti would hardly seem to be the ideal playing companion on the Sesame Street playground, but this one
is almost cuddly. Later on, the sudden infatuation with East Asia reoccurs on
ʽBrahminy Kiteʼ, another techno romp, very drum-heavy this time, but still very
similar in atmosphere — "descending all the time, pretending all the time,
pretending to be free" is Snaith's way of describing the bird, but the
slightly cynical lyrics are not even one bit reflected in the feather-thin,
electronic-baroque melodies.
Occasionally, stuff gets louder and crazier,
like on the multi-part ʽFinal Warningʼ, a speedy, monotonous groove sprouting
various bits of samples, backward tape recordings, distorted wordless vocals
and every once in a while erupting in walls of noise, but they are friendly
walls of noise, too, like large waves that periodically reach the electronic
surfer and provide an incentive for fun rather than fear. ʽBeesʼ starts out
very unusually, with a blues-rock-style twin guitar interplay that even sounds
somewhat snappy in the overall context of the record, but very soon, the
guitars are complemented with Dan's mellow vocals (half-Beach Boys, half-Nick
Drake), a folksy acoustic guitar part, then a pastoral flute part, and
eventually, one more friendly noisy climax that hardly seems to mean any harm.
I do not care much for the brief instrumental
links that join the tunes, but I do care that the man is also demonstrating
some major folk-pop talent — for instance, ʽHello Hammerheadsʼ is a bit of a
folk-pop gem with a smooth-as-butter merge between Dan's ideally delivered
vocal lines and the two-part acoustic guitar overdubs. That's just one song,
but it is of essential importance to the record because it provides some
insight into the personality of this «Caribou» guy (at least, his artistic
alter ego), confirming our suspicions that he likes to posit himself as a melancholic,
but idealistic loner, taking after Brian Wilson and Nick Drake to the best of
his 21st century man abilities. But for what he lacks in depth compared to
those guys, he makes up with scope: the repetitive blues-rock of ʽBarnowlʼ takes
its cue from Krautrock à la Neu! and
even Can, with all that metronomic repetitiveness and all those psychedelic
guitar tones. Only, once again, it's all nowhere near as disturbing or
frightening as classic Can could be in their prime — because we don't want to
scare off them kids.
Overall, as long as Snaith continues to make
cautious progress, he's okay by me, and on this record he's at least made
progress by shedding some of his artistic anonymity and showing a trifle of
personality — and it's a nice, intelligent, and creative personality alright,
so thumbs up
once again.
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