Caribou - Suddenly

February 28, 2020 - City Slang/Merge Records

Canadian Dan Snaith is back as Caribou, multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer and DJ. Suddenly follows 2014’s Our Love and 2017’s Joli Mai (as Daphni). This new outing finds the majestic hoofed ruminant in a familiar space, though time around this space has been warped and twisted in sometimes shocking ways. Suddenly feels, it holds, it releases, it smooths out, it ruffles up. It is an emotive project, sometimes going as far as to feel invasive from a listener's perspective.

The start is sharp and soft all at once. ‘Sister’ opens with a melancholic plucked synth line, gently easing our ears into listening mode. Snaith enters the piece boldly; the music fades back and we are left alone in the room with the voice. The themes here will reverberate throughout the project: change, love, loss, emotions, time, space. The music creeps back in as plucks turn to strums, the idea of a guitar floats above recorded audio snatched from a different plane.

The mood lingers for ‘You and I,’ but the immediate addition of percussion adds enough levity to place the track in the realm of sad-but-you-want-to-feel-sad pop. There’s hope here as well, hope that cuts through with an intense breakdown machete, filling the space with thumping bass and heavily distorted vocal chops. It’s jarring but not out of place. If anything it feels more like being in the mind of someone thinking about being in a different place than they currently are than actually being a person in a different place.

‘Sunny’s Time’ opens in the style of a piano sample yet to be lifted from a record hidden in the back of Nujabes’s hidden record crate. Snaith turns the volume down on that to softly sing about finding this and returning that. Some tenor saxophone notes played by Colin Fisher dance between the shredded fragments of a meaty rap vocal, shifting the mood again. The piano returns to complete its journey and the track is resolved.

‘New Jade’ works to combine the ingredients of the first three tracks in a new but cohesive recipe. Like an omelet made with last night's stir fry leftovers and covered in hot sauce, this works very well. Depth is present from the start, a crisp vocal sample laying on top of a dulcimer-esque synth line and some really thoughtful percussion. The use of toms is welcome and infectious; there’s dance substance here, but the pace of change is such as to provide not a moment of monotony. 

With newfound energy, ‘Home’ leans heavily on 1971’s ‘Home’ by Gloria Barnes to bring the project out of the cold, dark spring and firmly in the summer months of years past. The main sample is left more or less intact, with Snaith providing the main vocal lines amidst a sprinkling of violins, chimes, and recorded audio candy. Not two minutes later and this is all stripped away to reveal a less sunny guitar strumming away until that too fades away. 

Halfway through is ‘Lime,’ a track that has a harder time gaining earhold amidst those that surround it. The majority of the piece feels like a half-hearted tug-of-war between Snaith’s vocals and a funky soft-jazzy sample, Snaith literally asking something to “make up [its] mind.” ‘Lime’ is then abruptly stopped and restarted again, this time as 1975’s ‘The Sphynx’ by Black Soul. The result is jarring and while I welcome the departure from the tug-of-war, it doesn't feel like a reward. 

‘Never Come Back’ is certainly a reward however. The most Daphni oriented track thus far on Suddenly works to snap the lethargy built in ‘Lime’ back into rigidity. The mood remains somber but this is an equation that remains steadfast. It’s emotional without being overbearing, letting contexts float between listeners and bodies, minds and times. Moments of unity exist in this space with moments of loneliness; the song says it’s okay, no one’s experienced tomorrow and we’ve all got a past. My only desire for this track is to not fade out at the end, just as soon as a new layer of melody is added and new lyrics emerge; perhaps selfishly, I need more. 

‘Filtered Grand Piano’ is just that, and it enters and exits with nothing more, nothing less. 

‘Like I Loved You’ falls back to the sentiments of ‘New Jade’ and a bit of ‘Home.’ These tracks feel more vocal-considered than others on the project, or past projects for that matter; the lines between what came first are blurred, vocals sections being able to stand up to being separated from the music they exist beside. A very nice use of a snippet of ‘tick tick’ by weish rounds out the piece in a very nice way.

‘Magpie’ is a track full of ambiguous nostalgic energy to a degree that I had to double check what I was listening to. It’s not that the piece doesn’t fit the project, quite the contrary. More so the shift in emotional time and space feels distinct, and the treatment of the vocals and melody work to emphasise this feeling. It swells into fruition at the 1:30 mark to create one of the highlights of the album, bringing the piece into full Technicolor. 

Next is ‘Ravi,’ a bouncy dance number that embodies its position on the album as a hope-filled encore to a long night out full of emotional highs and lows. This time is ending, but its ending allows for another time to take its place. Delicately arranged vocal chops drive the beat and chords forward, Snaith choosing to interject minimally here and there towards the end. 

Snaith takes advantage of the energy having been dispelled by ‘Ravi’ to present the sleepy-dreamy ‘Cloud Song.’ It’s a tender end to a tender project. Playful use of effects on the main plucked melody line provide an introspective landscape for the mind to wander. The vocal treatment here is very intimate, bookending the closeness felt with ‘Sister.’ It’s the longest track on the project by a fair amount, and the time is well spent; some moments in other pieces feel like they weren’t given the space to breath that ‘Cloud Song’ has, though this feels more intentional given the nature of the project’s general subject.

Suddenly is an emotionally introspective album that puts the listener in a specific space but allows for exploration. Though at times hopeful, the majority of the pieces here move around the softer, sadder conditions of interaction. Its title and approach to song structure play with each other and the listener. Sometimes we lose track of the passing of time, of space, of here, of now, of never again, and of always. I am thankful for this music. 🍍