Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.05.2011, Side 30

30
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 6 — 2011
Wow, Caribou are playing on May 22 at NASA! See you there, right?
Eyrarbraut 3, 825 Stokkseyri, Iceland · Tel. +354 483 1550
Fax. +354 483 1545 · info@fjorubordid.is · www.fjorubordid.is
At the Restaurant Fjöruborðið in Stokkseyri
> Only 45 minutes drive from Reykjavík
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WHALE WATCHING TOURS
„That was marvellous!
We saw many whales
and dolphins. Fantastic.“
-Samantha
With five albums under his belt, Dan
Snaith's sound continues to ap-
proach a plane of infinite possibili-
ties. From the club-inspired 'Swim'
to the psychedelic 'The Milk of Hu-
man Kindness,' there is no doubt
Dan, who goes by the moniker
Caribou, has found his muse in the
chameleon; it's simply impossible
to know what kind of music he will
produce next. With the persistence
of the band's drummer Brad Weber,
a true 'Iceland-o-phile,' Caribou
will finally be gracing us with their
presence this weekend. We caught
up with Dan for a short interview
before the concert to pick his ever-
evolving musical and mathematical
mind.
You're known for changing your
sound with every record. Is this
something you do intentionally or
does it happen naturally?
I don't think I could summon enough
enthusiasm to make the same record
over again. While I was making my sec-
ond album, at first I thought: “Okay, I
should make this one like the first one
because people seemed to like that”.
But that felt so retrograde. For me, it's
just natural that music evolves. Now I've
gotten to the point where I consciously
want to change with each album and I
like that people expect something dif-
ferent from me every time.
Do you get bored easily with the
songs that you write? Is that why
you change your sound often?
I've never gotten tired of playing any
song live. Some bands don't want to
play their older songs, but I'm always
consumed with the moment during
live shows, so it's always this differ-
ent, changing experience. But the most
exciting part about music for me is al-
ways generating the ideas in the first
place. Then there's this long process of
tweaking things and getting all the son-
ic particulars in place, which is okay,
but that's not the exciting part about
making music, not for me at least.
How do you feel about 'Swim', your
latest album, compared to your oth-
ers?
It's definitely my favourite of all of them.
I feel like it's a comprehensive collec-
tion of what I've done musically so far.
And since 'Swim' was released a year
ago, our experience playing live has
completely changed. Before this album,
we never had people dancing at shows,
because it wasn't really that kind of mu-
sic. Now, everyone dances. Being able
to see some sort of physical response
from people feeds our excitement when
performing live. It changes the way the
songs develop as we're playing them.
We've incorporated its electronic ele-
ments into a properly spontaneous live
show, rather than somebody just push-
ing buttons on a laptop.
It's been about a year since its re-
lease, have you written any new
stuff since then?
Just ideas. It's not like I sit down and
write ten tracks and those are the ones
that go on the album. It's a very gradual
process of figuring out the different
sonic directions I can go in. My ideas
build up over time rather than occur all
together. So I've started in some sense,
but I couldn't play you a song that's go-
ing to be on the next album. I've only
recorded bits and pieces.
Have you been to Iceland before?
I've been in the airport for about an
hour on the way to the UK from Can-
ada. But our drummer Brad Weber is
a massive Iceland-o-phile. He's visited
many, many times. He's constantly like,
when can we do a show in Iceland?
But somehow it just never worked out
until now. Even this time it was a trade
off because we'll end up only having
24 hours in the country. Though it's a
shame, we all really want to play in Ice-
land so we rearranged our schedule to
make sure that we could this time. And
we don't sleep very much, so we'll do as
much as we can in that little bit of time.
Well you won't have too much trou-
ble not sleeping in Iceland because
we've already got almost 24 hours
of light here.
Yeah exactly. That will help. I think this
trip will be more about meeting people
there, rather than getting out into the
natural environments. That will have to
wait till next time.
Do you listen to any Icelandic musi-
cians?
One of the reasons I've wanted to come
to Iceland for the last five or six years
was because we did a tour with Mugi-
son in Japan in 2005. We had such an
awesome time. His music is so great.
Ever since then, I've followed Icelandic
music. I like Sin Fang a lot too. We were
excited when we heard he was going to
be playing with us at the show Sunday
night.
I read that you have a PhD in math-
ematics from Imperial College
London. Do you have two separate
brains, one for math and another for
music?
I've been making my own music since I
was a teenager. In fact, my first album,
'Start Breaking My Heart', came out
when I was an undergraduate student.
And I was still doing my PhD when my
next few albums came out. It all just
happened gradually. I probably would
have chosen to do music in the first
place if I could have somehow known
beforehand that I would be able sup-
port myself doing it. Making music is
more of an intuitive, emotional process
for me. But mathematics was something
that I really enjoyed too, so it wasn't like
I wanted to escape from it as soon as
I had the chance. I think mathematics
is more musical than people realise.
The mathematics you do as a PhD stu-
dent are completely different than the
arithmetic you do in high school. The
higher levels of mathematics are much
more creative, intuitive, and artistic. In
that sense, the things that I like about
mathematics parallel what I like about
music.
The Exponential Curve Of Caribou
Music | Interview
Dan Snaith discusses dancing, math, and the necessity for change
VANESSA SCHIPANI
SHARESE ANN FREDERICK