Caribou - Tour CD
ARTIST.....: Caribou
TITLE......: Tour CD
LABEL......: n/a
URL........: www.caribou.fm
RIP DATE...: Jun-06-2005
STORE DATE.: Apr-15-2005
GENRE......: Indie
QUALITY....: VBR / 44.1Hz / Joint-Stereo
SIZE.......: 90,1 MB
Track Listing:
01 - Mix 36:28
02 - Bloody Murder 02:17
03 - Medium Sized Working Dog (Steady Steady) 07:00
04 - Cardiff 00:51
05 - Raspberry 03:02
06 - The Snow Capes 03:33
07 - Sinuses 04:52
─────
58:03 min
Release Notes:
A tour souvenir sold only at shows falls somewhere between a fan
club release and a B-side. It's an opportunity to reward the
people who bothered to show up, and a chance to put out music that
one wouldn't necessarily want to keep in the catalog or worry
about distributing through more traditional channels. Dan Snaith's
Caribou is currently winding across North America (definitely
worth checking out, by the way) and they've brought with them this
odd little object, which combines a lengthy DJ mix by Snaith with
six The Milk of Human Kindness outtakes.
On a DJ set by a songwriter the tendency it to listen for
influence, to see if he'll tip his hand and I'll catch a nicked
drum beat or appropriated chord change. Snaith's mix doesn't
exactly deliver in that regard, but it does explain why he was
fated to break away from the melancholy, Warp-influenced
electronica of his debut. Among other things, his mix contains
obscure pop from the 1960s and 70s, outsized songs with big voices
delivering direct statements, and it's difficult to see how such
obsessions could lead one down the introspective path of Start
Breaking Your Heart.
It's a diverse mix, though, and in addition to pop nuggets from
the Zombies, he tosses in jazz (Albert Ayler and Alice Coltrane),
proggy instrumentals, 80s Euro-disco, rare groove funk, and some
solo steel string guitar. The arc of the set generally is rather
flat, offering a sampling of interesting sounds rather than
building or moving in any particular direction, more along the
lines of 36 minutes of eclectic free form radio.
The six new songs are a tribute to Snaith's editing abilities with
albums proper. Though they tread similar stylistic ground, these
tracks are nowhere near as developed as the material that wound up
on The Milk of Human Kindness, so you'll hear loud echoes of
tracks that made the final cut while understanding why these were
left behind. "Bloody Murder" goes hard on the dramatic piano tone
used to great effect on "Pelican Narrows", pounding the tense mood
imparted by the refrain into the ground, but this feels like a
fragment of an idea that just hangs in the air. "The Snow Capes"
has a splashy drum pattern (Snaith loves his crash cymbal, and we
love him for it) with a cyclical keyboard melody that, repetitive
as it is, would work better as a short interlude. "Medium Sized
Working Dog (Steady Steady)" feels more complete, sharing the
interlaced guitar/drum motorik groove with "Bees" and "Yeti"
before veering off into Moog-ed out psych during its break. Though
it overlaps too closely with the best tracks on The Milk of Human
Kindness, "Medium Sized Working Dog (Steady Steady)" could stand
on its own.
The tracks that moves furthest afield from TMOHK are the three-
minute drone "Raspberries", which swirls together various
keyboards and oscillators into an unsatisfying approximation of a
Boredoms space filler, and the wistful closer "Sinuses", which
sounds like a Start Breaking Your Heart B-side and shows that
Snaith could still bring the pastoral IDM if he were so inclined.
Even if it's a bit light on standalone pleasures, Tour CD 2005 is
instructive, showing where Snaith comes from while fleshing out
the story his last record.
-Mark Richardson, May 20, 2005 (pitchforkmedia.com)