Electronic artist Dan Snaith, working as Caribou, produced brilliantly abstract albums for more than a decade, moving from the glitchy weirdness of his 2001 debut, Start Breaking My Heart, into more delicate mergers of organic sounds and electronic production, with his 2007 standout album Andorra and its more psychedelic follow-up Swim in 2010. The move toward the dancefloor that was hinted at on Swim is brought into full focus on sixth full-length Our Love, a collection of ten powerful grooves that still manage a bit of Snaith's trademark psychedelic production. The underwater-sounding loop of electric piano and slowed-down vocals that begins album opener "Can't Do Without You" lingers for a while in a soft, welcoming way, setting the tone for a good minute and a half before the song's beat drops, offering the most good-natured take on a house track imaginable. Covered in aquatic phaser effects, the song builds to anthemic heights before settling back into softness for the end. Snaith's falsetto vocals throughout the album seem to find the middleground between James Blake's moody mysteriousness and Arthur Russell's curious wonderment. Standout tracks like "Silver," or the lovely title track, find Snaith's airy vocals floating atop a web of steadfast beats and murky vocal samples. Unexpected snippets of string samples, '80s-sounding electronic percussion, and disconnected voices come in and out of the picture, with songs seamlessly blooming from blurry bedroom productions into full definition dance tracks. Snaith's ear for pop hooks keeps even the harder-edged tunes here catchy, as with the hypnotic but ever melodic forward push of "Your Love Will Set You Free." All told, Our Love stands as the most straightforwardly danceable Caribou album to date, but holds on to both the experimental bent and composition-minded musicality that helped build the project's one-of-a-kind sound world.
© Fred Thomas /TiVo