 Canadian musician Daniel Snaith, better known as Caribou, will be playing in Korea for the first time July 9 at the V-Hall in Hongdae. / Courtesy of Windish Agency |
Staff reporter
A quick search on Google will provide this definition for ``Caribou'': Arctic deer with large antlers. But continue on down to the fourth definition, and one will come upon the entry for an indie electronic mammoth _ and that's exactly who Korea can look forward to this weekend.
Daniel Snaith, the man behind Caribou, will play in Seoul Friday night for a show filled with beats and sweet samples. Part of the tour to promote his latest album, it will be the Canadian musician's first performance in Korea.
``Swim,'' released in April, brings a new dance feel to Caribou's sound, moving away from the pop of 2007's ``Andorra.'' Snaith spoke with The Korea Times in a recent phone interview about his latest album and upcoming performance here.
``There's so much diversity of music that I listen to and dance music has always been a part of that, as well as psychedelic pop on the last record,'' the musician said. ``But the last few years, the most exciting music I've heard has all been from the world of dance music.''
Add that to a lifestyle of increasingly frequent DJing, Snaith said, and the more dance-based sound organically emerged. ``Part of making this record was taking the tracks that I'd started working on and getting a reaction from people'' at the clubs, he added. In that setting, ``people don't necessarily know what you're working on, so you get an unbiased feeling.''
``It's a surprise to me when I'm making the music, which is the excitement of it: not knowing,'' the 32-year-old said of his typical creative process. But ``Swim'' not only saw a change in sound, but also to his approach. ``With this one, I wanted to make music that's liquid, or fluid, or dance music that has those properties.''
His goal translated clearly onto the album, which pulls together songs that range smoothly from the techno, beat-driven ``Sun'' (created impulsively out of another track) to the more haunting ``Odessa,'' accompanied with rather personal lyrics about a friend.
``In the past I haven't really felt like I particularly had anything I wanted to write about, and I never had that sense that I wanted to make the music personal. It was always about aesthetics and the excitement of music,'' he said, adding that ``it still is.''
``But this time around it felt like there was a connection, synergy between various things going on and the music that I was making.''
This crossover between life and art can be felt throughout the release. ``Bowls'' features a sample of Tibetan wares Snaith found while traveling, creating an earthy, light sound that complements the synth of the track.
Though the musician earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in 2005, he avoids the stereotypes of systematic rationale. It's more about the ``accidents, intuition and emotional process,'' than what people would expect a mathematician would focus on to create music.
``I think people imagine mathematicians being closer to accountants, but they're more philosophers than they are dry, scientific personalities,'' Snaith said.
This follows his openness to new music and, though currently immersed in the London dance music scene, Snaith looks forward to hearing new sounds whenever he travels. For example, he recently met with local artists while on a trip to Serbia.
``When we do shows we meet other musicians and while traveling, we're always listening to a new kind of music,'' he said. ``But the fact that we've never been to Korea, it's kind of a new world, a new music culture to learn about.''
Caribou will play at V-Hall in Hongdae on July 9, at 10 p.m., backed by members of indie-rock band Enon. Tickets cost 55,000 won in advance, 59,500 won at the door. For more information, visit www.supercolorsuper.com.
