Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 20/08/07
Label: City Slang

"Andorra" is the first album that Caribou's Dan Snaith's been able to write and record unburdened with worrying about his PhD in Algebraic Number Theory, which he read at London's Imperial College. Without the distraction of sums so complex that the rest of us would quail before them, Snaith has expanded his musical equations into longer forms for his most complex and fully realised album to date. Whereas previous outings "Up In Flames" and "The Milk Of Human Kindness" dealt in studied krautrock and skittish folktronica, "Andorra" feels free and fresh, comfortable exploring its own sonic identity.

Perhaps this was informed by a very mathematical deconstruction and rearrangement of his songs to allow them to be played by his current four-piece (including two drummers) live set up - his songs here are certainly more structured and traditionally formed than ever before. Snaith himself says that travelling the tiny state of Andorra was an inspiration in the writing and recording of this album, though it's in no way supposed to be a concept album relating to the Principality. Instead, it's not hard to argue that the hazy, sunlit landscapes of "Andorra" evoke the bigger skies and dramatic forms of the North American Continent, which Snaith left to pursue math in London.

It was, after all, during a trip (in more ways than one) into the vast Canadian prairies that a lysergically altered Snaith was inspired to rename his musical alter-ego Caribou after Richard 'Handsome Dick' Manitoba's lawyers came after him. It's all filtered through a rosy glow of the carefree '60s psychedelia that shapes "Andorra" through elegant multi-instrumentalism and deftly crafted textures. There's the haunting flute and sliding rhythms and hazy vocals of the opening "Melody Day" for a start, while "Eli" is "Ruby Tuesday" dancing in the sunshine with flowers in her hair. "She's The One" has hints of the cutting, fresh air that informed Grandaddy's classic "Sophtware Slump".

The trilling flute makes a welcome return to flirt with a tickly bass line and eddying strings on the superb "Desiree", which sounds about as far from its starchy potato namesake as you could imagine. Piece de resistance, though, is magnificent album closer "Niobe", nearly nine minutes of pulsing electronics that twist around an entirely addictive groove before a final climax, and graceful denouement. It's a fitting end to a superb album that sparkles with subtle vitality.

    by Luke Turner