Word: caribouã
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...Jamelia,” Caribou gives up completely and returns to his more airy roots, and the songs are better for it. The former, in particular, uses swelling, melancholic synthesizers and delicately whispered vocals to haunting effect. While “Lalibela” recalls the best of Caribou??s previous releases, that song and “Jamelia” are strange fits on an album dominated by pulsating drum-and-bass beats. Still, they’re a welcome break from the indecisiveness of “Swim’s” fallow middle section...
...Andorra” introduce “Odessa,” and give listeners a very good hint at what Caribou is trying to accomplish with “Swim.” After years of balancing dream pop, noise, and spaced-out electronica, this is Caribou??s dance record...
...tracks that follow it, “Sun” and “Kaili,” form a brilliant triple act with “Odessa,” venturing daringly into various subgenres of dance but with a firm safety line linking them to Caribou??s dreamy home territory. Soon enough, though, that line starts to drag the record back towards Caribou??s earlier sound, and “Swim” experiences something of an identity crisis. Caribou seems to lose his nerve, and the meandering, spacey sounds...
...which clearly aspires to be a dance track but, for all its echoes of New Order and layered instrumentals, never achieves liftoff, sinking instead into a repetitive morass. None of these tracks are exactly bad, but they all feels slightly aimless, lacking both the propulsive physicality of Caribou??s dance music and the fragile beauty of his spaced-out electronica...
This indecisiveness, rather than the music itself, is what holds “Swim” back. The album seems to reside in an odd limbo, demonstrating superb dance tracks and Caribou??s continuing mastery of his familiar fields, but failing to commit to a cohesive vision of either. The album’s confusion might induce a little nostalgia for the sweeping sounds of “Andorra.” But more than anything, Caribou should be applauded for his courage in releasing a record that strays far from the formula of his previous releases...