Suddenly

Caribou’s Dan Snaith is one of those guys you might be tempted to call a “producer” but at this point is basically a singer-songwriter who happens to work in an electronic medium. Like 2014’s <i>Our Love</i> and 2010’s <i>Swim</i>, the core DNA of <i>Suddenly</i> is dance music, from which Snaith borrows without constraint or historical agenda: deep house on “Lime”, UK garage on “Ravi”, soul breakbeats on “Home”, rave uplift on “Never Come Back”. But where dance tends to aspire to the communal (the packed floor, the oceanic release of dissolving into the crowd), <i>Suddenly</i> is intimate, almost folksy, balancing Snaith’s intricate productions with a boyish, unaffected singing style and lyrics written in nakedly direct address: “If you love me, come hold me now/Come tell me what to do” (“Cloud Song”), “Sister, I promise you I’m changing/You’ve had broken promises I know” (“Sister”) and other confidences generally shared in bedrooms. (That Snaith is singing a lot more makes a difference too—the beat moves, but he anchors.) And for as gentle and politely good-natured as the spirit of the music is (Snaith named the album after his daughter’s favourite word), Caribou still seems capable of backsliding into pure wonder, a suggestion that one can reckon the humdrum beauty of domestic relationships and still make time to leave the ground now and then.