Far Too Many Years Of Her Life

Caribou “Odessa”

Dan Snaith’s style shifts considerably from album to album, but somehow he manages to have a consistent, identifiable core aesthetic. However, it’s not easy to explain what that aesthetic is — it’s something intuitive about his tones and song structures, and the way he balances an icy exterior with a subtle warmth. Andorra, his previous album as Caribou, was mostly spaced-out harmonic psychedelia, but this time around he has gone deep into an apparent Arthur Russell fixation. It’s in his voice, which has taken on a similar soft, sensitive affectation (you may also hear a bit of Erlend Øye in there), but more importantly, it’s in the music, which has absorbed the atmosphere and grooves of Russell’s disco work. It’s not a total clone of Russell’s music. Snaith’s compositions include a lot of modern and classic house influences along with elements of freestyle, ambient music, and psychedelia, but there’s a similar sense that the songs are musical microclimates cut off from their surroundings. “Odessa” layers its rhythms and textures into a careful lattice of sound, rich in detail but abundant with negative space. It feels like a very specific space — either a particular time and place, or state of mind. I get a bit of déjà vu just listening to it.

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