Swim

After the exciting psych-pop of 2007’s <i>Andorra</i>, fans of Dan Snaith — aka Caribou — might have wondered what, if anything, could top that remarkable album. But <i>Swim</i> at least matches it even though it's is an altogether different beast. Here Snaith goes deep into electronic dance music and experimental textures, and the colors morph from neon brights to shades of midnight blue and gray. The dance floor calls, with tunes like the pulsating “Odessa” and “Leave House” burrowing deep on beats built with spare, emphatic layers, but there’s an industrial shadow, a veiled bleakness to some of these tracks, and it makes them all the more beautiful: “Jamelia” is the sound of desperation drowning under shrieking synths and watery percussion, and “Kaili” is full-on psychotropic mind-cinema (just close your eyes for a ride), its corroded and plaintive tones the cries of a lost soul. <i>Swim</i> is all soul, though it’s delivered in electronica’s sometimes sterile wrapping. With Snaith at the controls, sterility is never a concern.