Daphni, Caribou, Manitoba (Dan Snaith's many faces)

 

 

The uber-educated mathematician and electronic music artist, and increasingly straight DJ, Dan Snaith has gone by a few guises now.  He'd likely still be Manitoba if a man appropriately named Dick Manitoba hadn't threatened to sue him for impinging on his right to pursue a career in punk rock.  Thus Caribou was born out of litigious necessity.  And there are Caribou in Manitoba aren't there? 

 

His latest transmogrification to Daphni has various origin stories.  The Guardian UK plots the birth of the moniker/production identity to "a remix in 2009, reimagining Cortney Tidwell's Watusii.  Daphni later remixed Hot Chip and Emeralds.

 

His complete discography as Daphni spans from February of this year with five tracks he produced for a Resident Advisor mix that's unfortunately no longer available.  At the time he described the sound and style of the tracks as such: 

"The tracks on this mix are just sketches really—rough ideas that allowed for mixing the other tracks together in different ways. The tracks by other artists on this mix are there because I was excited about them when I was working on the mix—having just come home after being away for a long time there was a big pile of 12-inches that I'd bought but hadn't listened to."

Daphni seems to have been born out of a return from touring the hugely successful Swim album and exploring less rigorous and meticulous approaches to both producing and DJ'ing.  A press release compares Caribou's "meticulous compositional rigours" to Daphni's music which has a "more feminine, fluid energy".   The genesis of the sound seems in some way a return to the rigours of DJ'ing and pressing one's on white labels in a Serato world for an evening's performance.

"During the time I was making the [2010] Caribou album Swim, I'd fallen back in love with moments in small, dark clubs when a DJ puts on a piece of music that not only can you not identify, but that until you heard it you could not have conceived of existing," Snaith said. "Daphni tracks are rough and spontaneous … They're about working fast and intuitively, capturing the manic energy needed to start a track one afternoon, have it finished, and be playing it in a club that night."
 

Daphni discography

Resident Advisor, February 2011 (5 tracks of episode #246)

Daphni Edits Vol. 1, 12" [Resista], March 2011.

Pinnacles / Ye Ye, 12" split w/ Four Tet [Text], March 2011

Daphni Edits Vol. 2, 12" [Resista], August 2011

JIAOLONG001, 12" [Jiaolong], October 2011

Ahora, 12" [Amazing Sounds], November 2011
Jiaolong, LP [Jiaolong], October 2012

Daphni - Ahora

Daphni has just released a full length LP Jiaolong citing influences like Theo Parrish and Floating Points.  Generally Snaith cites influences, based on qualities of 'idiosyncracy and distinctiveness' including:  Ron Hardy, James Holden, Gary Davis, Todd Edwards, William Onyeabor, Ricardo Villalobos, Daft Punk, DJ Harvey and Moodymann.

This 45 minute DJ set from New York's Boiler Room shows Snaith mixing new tracks he's picked up in his travels alongside Daphni cuts.  Having toured extensively in various arrangements including various compliments of drummers and live musicians it's nice to see the man return to something resembling 'behind the decks'.   Parrish seems to have influenced Snaith's growth as an artist under his various names as far back as a DJ set Dan took in at London club Plastic People with Kieran Hebden of Four Tet after seeing Liquid Liquid play a live gig.

"We walked in and he was playing a Liquid Liquid record," he recalls. "The records Theo played that night were just amazing—they were so diverse and came from such a wide range of influences and sounds. A lot of them were quite deconstructed... [his set] reawakened me to the idea that there's quite a lot of space within dance music to do interesting things."