Musician, not mathematician

Interviews with electronic musician Dan Snaith, better known by his alias Caribou, often tend to begin with a discussion about his mathematical background. Interviewers are keen to draw a correlation between his PhD and his creative process, but when The Journal intercepted Snaith on his way to a doctor's appointment and asked how relevant he found this connection, he is quick to dispel the myth. "You know the maths stuff really isn’t [relevant], although people do like to draw meaning from it." But when it comes to latest album Swim - hailed as "mesmerising and innovative" by Q upon its release last year - and the fact that Snaith took to the water to learn for the first time while producing the album, he is more forthcoming: "I wanted to make a more liquid, watery-sounding record with Swim and this definitely came from my experience of learning to swim."

The new record is a departure from the "sun-kissed pop" (as Pitchfork put it) of his previous album Andorra which has, in part, come from becoming involved with the dance scene in London. Snaith is a neighbour of Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, and a big fan of James Holden and Nathan Fake, all three of whom are performing with him at his upcoming Glasgow date. Snaith describes the group as being "close friends" possessing "a kinship", and while he maintains that he doesn’t consider himself ‘part of the scene’, he did produce Swim while Hebden was producing his own album, There is Love in You, and acknowledges that there was a huge amount of dialogue between the two during the recording process. "We were often listening back and forth to each other’s stuff during the process," says Snaith, who obviously has a great deal of respect for Hebden’s work. When it comes to the upcoming Glasgow gig, Snaith seems audibly excited about the lineup, describing it as "a group of friends playing together", and it's certainly an interesting proposition: Snaith, his collaborators and his influences all coming together on a single stage.

When it comes to the rise of electronica and dubstep, particularly amongst the indie and ‘hipster’ scenes, Snaith acknowledges that he "wasn’t outside of the trend or oblivious to the change, I became more and more interested in the genre and I think it’s an exciting time for dance music." The evolution in Caribou’s sound has brought the music to a whole new audience and the people now surrounding the act reflect that. Whereas Andorra was toured with support from indie band Born Ruffians, Swim is being toured on the same bill as hot dubstep and techno/house producers like Theo Parrish and Jamie XX.

Change seems characteristic of Snaith’s career, however, as Caribou was once Manitoba, a name claimed by Richard 'Handsome Dick' Manitoba, frontman of The Directors. After suing Snaith for the rights to the name, a process described by Snaith as "a bureaucratic mess", Caribou was born. Snaith maintains that while he still feels an affinity with both names he considered the change to be a formality and would have no desire to change back if he had the chance. When asked if he would hark back to the sound of Andorra for his next album, it becomes clear that this transient attitude is one he also adopts in terms of his music: "Going back doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? I think that I would hope to keep evolving in terms of what I’m listening to and finding interesting at the time, but I have no idea what direction the next record is going to go in."

'Odessa', the lead single from the album, was recently featured on the FIFA 2011 videogame soundtrack, which will no doubt lead to an increased awareness of Caribou’s music. Questioned about his feelings on licensing, Snaith tells me that in terms of FIFA it was "a good thing, you know: I’m pretty pragmatic about things. I realised it was a totally different and unrelated market to be playing to and, I mean, I made the music to be listened to. Of course when it comes to licensing though there are things I don’t agree with and I turn them down." While he's clearly not overwhelmingly passionate about commercial licensing, he certainly seems to be looking forward to his upcoming Scottish date, which promises both the cardinal virtues of exceptional music and stylistic coherence. And with friends like those, who needs critics?