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Caribou
THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS
(Leaf/Domino)
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As the world’s permanent glut of from-the-heart wanna-bes gradually drop their acoustics and open-mike pub crawls for garage/Garbage rock and dreams of going Postal Service, Caribou’s Dan Snaith reminds us that technology is a crutch for good songwriting, not a substitute. Can, Faust, and Kraftwerk showed they understood that too when they began incorporating tape loops and noise and minimalism into pop rock’s trick bag. Then somebody or something dropped the ball really, really hard, and suddenly electronic recordings everywhere not only felt unsatisfying but barely functioned as signposts for the responsible hardware. Snaith is a good songwriter, though — he proved that on 2003’s Up in Flames, which he recorded as Manitoba before Handsome Dick of Dictators fame filed suit. More important, he understands the tradition he’s working in. Songs here start as unassuming minimal loops with barely a hint of anything resembling a motorik beat. But Snaith is quick to expand those loops, sometimes even explode them, as he brings in heavy drums for the beatheads, drones for the beards, analog instruments for the rockists, and instant-pleasure melodies for the poppists. He even has a beautiful voice. This is textbook kraut, scientifically distilled, a perfection of the promise so many have butchered and so many more will.
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