Caribou - Swim

Caribou’s gone and made a new record. It’s called Swim. I can’t imagine swimming to while listening to it, unless I was swimming in a wave pool with regularly occurring waves of varying amplitudes superimposed over irregularly occurring waves of similar amplitudes while dodging tugboats. Themes repeat endlessly here, going in and out of phase, while variations on those themes pop in and out, and occasionally flutes and cowbells and screaming woodwinds stick their silly sounds in as if to say “Hi I’m going to completely alter your perception of what this song really is trying to do hahaha you thought this was a normal dance song.”

All this makes it sound like Swim should be very chaotic, and on first listen it is, but repeated listens on headphones with the volume blasted a little too high reveal a definite, masterful order to each track. It probably even looked beautiful on the screen as it was getting mixed. Probably the best track on here is “Leave House.” It features flute, retro drums/synths (with some sort of weird digital reverb!) and wispy vocals, and it’s not the least bit annoying. This is a triumph of production and songwriting.

So yeah, it’s a Caribou record. It’s not packed with retro-psychedelia like his previous record, or glitchy weirdness like his earlier records, and I do admittedly miss the drum freakouts a bit, but it’s about as good as a record as one dude can make.

It’s awesome. It comes out on April 20. Buy it. Grade: A.