New Music Reviews, Cancon Edition: Grimes and Caribou

Canadian artists Caribou and Grimes both make music that’s creative and laced with pop hooks. Both have released new albums this year; Caribou’s is more pop-oriented than usual, while Grimes takes a darker path. Try Caribou’s Suddenly for breezy enjoyment and Grimes’ Miss Anthropocene for a menacing concept album.

Caribou – Suddenly

I’m sure I’m not the only music fan who prefers music with obvious human emotion. Accordingly, electronic music can be a tough nut to crack – you can enjoy the sonic experimentation, but not emotionally connect with it in the same way as with music fronted by a human voice. Caribou’s Dan Snaith solves this dilemma by adding his own homespun vocals to his tracks, providing an easy way in for fickle fans like me.

Suddenly isn’t unlike Eno’s vocal albums of the 1970s – you can dance to it, and instead of star turns from guest musicians like Robert Fripp and Phil Collins, it’s the vocal samples that provide the spark. But Eno and Snaith share an interest in marrying textural experimentation with succinct songwriting, topped off with their endearing vocals. Snaith’s gentle voice often recalls Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue.

Suddenly is Snaith’s tenth album, including records as Manitoba and Daphni. The twelve songs were developed from nine hundred 30-second draft ideas. Snaith holds a doctorate in mathematics, in Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols, but there’s emotional heft communicated by his gentle voice as well.

Snaith covers a lot of stylistic ground on Suddenly – the immediacy of the dance-pop on ‘Never Come Back’ contrasts with the intimacy of ‘Like I Loved You’. The verse of ‘You and I’ recalls the 1980s-flavoured sophisti-pop of The 1975, but the chorus spirals unpredictably. Often it’s the mellowest material that works the best – ‘Ravi’ extracts every possible ounce of beauty out of its gentle groove. Snaith’s textural experimentation is at the forefront on pieces like ‘Sunny’s Time’ and ‘Cloud Song’.

Suddenly is a superlative album of smart dance-pop, delivering textual experimentation and memorable hooks.

Grimes – Miss Anthropocene

It’s more than four years since Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, last released an album. In that time her profile has increased dramatically, dating tech-entrepreneur Elon Musk and becoming pregnant with his child. Along with the early leaks of Miss Anthropocene, it feels as though the side-stories have overshadowed the music.

Miss Anthropocene is a concept album, named after the “anthropomorphic goddess of climate change”. It’s darker than Grimes’ previous record, the pop-laced Art Angels – the music follows the lyrics. Grimes told Lana Del Rey in Interview Magazine that the album is a “a modern demonology or a modern pantheon where every song is about a different way to suffer or a different way to die.”

Grimes is an auteur – she’s known for recording techniques like overlaying fifty different vocal tracks over each other. ‘Delete Forever’ is based around an acoustic guitar part, but was created entirely from samples. Due to the dark nature of the record, the hooks on Miss Anthropocene are more subdued than on Art Angels. There are upbeat moments like ‘You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around’, but a lot of the material is darker, closer to post-punk than pop. The hooky ‘We Appreciate Power’ was slated as the album’s first single in 2018, but it doesn’t fit the dark mood and it’s instead a bonus track on the Japanese edition.

Miss Anthropocene is dark and oppressive, but it’s also endlessly fascinating. Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes features on ‘Darkseid’, breaking up the oppressive darkness with her distinctive voice. The pop side of Grimes is relatively subdued, and the most energetic piece, ‘You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone’, is buried in the middle of the second side. Your enjoyment of Miss Anthropocene probably depends on your tolerance for brooding ballads ‘New Gods’ and ‘Before the Fever’, and moody soundscapes like ‘Idoru’.

As usual with Grimes, Miss Anthropocene is able to offer both arty weirdness and pop hooks. The balance is firmly tilted towards the former on this record, but it’s still a fascinating concept album with plenty to reward repeat listening.

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