Caribou – Andorra (Merge Records, 2007)
The one aspect of musicality that this thing lacks is also what makes it great. The singular vision of an overly meticulous enthusiast, critically arranging and re-arranging every second of each track lends Andorra a tremendously compact and creative vision. At the same time what makes music a remarkable art form, as well as communicative device, is that the idea of one talented musical explorer can be bounced to another and augmented. These nine songs, no matter how many times you may want to listen to them in succession, have not really had that chance. The Pink Floyd of “Sandy” may have ended up having a bit of a Zappa inflection. But, that can never actually be figured. Even so, the placement of the drum pattern and phasing, functioning as another voice amongst the varied pallet of sound already administered by Dan Snaith, didn’t come from disparate sources. It came from him, as did the delicate concern exuded by the music as well as the vocal and lyrical intonation, during “Desiree”. The entirety of this disc emanated from a single source, and we have that to be thankful for.
