Song of the Day: Caribou - Our Love

Song of the Day
11/18/2014
Gerrit Feenstra
photo by Thomas Neukum

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, selected by Midday Show host Cheryl Waters, is "Our Love" by Caribou from the 2014 album Our Love on Merge Records.

Caribou - Our Love (MP3)

Canadian electronic veteran Dan Snaith has always shown a masterful power and control over sound and emotion. Whether it's as Caribou or Manitoba or even his more recent dance moniker Daphni, Snaith finds ways to break your heart without uttering a single syllable. 2010's Swim LP did this in incredible, navigating a massive sonic palette in 40 minutes flat, exposing every part of the human condition to a rawness that we otherwise don't come into contact with frequently. But where Swim focused on taking a dive and going elsewhere to explore, Caribou goes inward with Our Love. Track by track, Snaith tackles the wonder, dread, mystery, and warmth of the compassion and sensuality that hold humans together. From the delicate lover's call of "Can't Do Without You" to the distance and cold of "Mars", Caribou shows our love for what it is, and it's a both a beautiful and impossibly complex thing.

The record's title track finds a happy medium between the bedroom and interplanetary distance, giving a bird's eye view synopsis of the atmosphere that Caribou attempts to capture on the full record. The falsetto coo of "our love" guides the dance track forward, as layers shift in and out, at times making the track feel warmer and more personable, while other times feeling distant and clandestine. As the chameleon dance cut pounds forward, it shifts and morphs and changes shape, but always with an underlying desire for touch. Caribou's take on dance music has always done this incredibly well: balance the dance floor with human intimacy. And here on "Our Love", he does what he does best with impeccable style.

Caribou is currently finishing a U.S. tour in the southeast. After the new year, they'll head to Australia, but will return to Seattle at the Showbox on March 4, 2015. Check their website and Facebook page for more dates and information. For now, here's the official video for today's featured song:

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