If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you may live in Canada"
I like Canadians. They are spread around the US quietly passing themselves off as natives with the only giveaways the occasional “eh”, or the correct pronunciation of Basil and vase - correct being the way its said in our shared Mother country. I like them because they have made some great friends over the years and because they have the shared chip on their shoulder that comes with being from a small country and so share in the basking glory of any minor Canadian triumph as do the Brits. They also produce a disproportionate amount of great music, creativity springs from having unique seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction. If you are not one of the lucky hockey super stars what else is there to do but learn how to play guitar and write songs. As soon as they can, they then use that talent to get them on a plane and into the sun of California.
The list is a long and storied one Joni Mitchell, the Band and Neil Young from the hippy era, Bryan Adams, Rush and Celine Dion from the 'over the top' pop era, Cowboy Junkies, Crash Test Dummies and Alanis Morissette the darlings of the alternative 90’s. The list literally goes on for pages and pages so there is something to be said for getting snow bound for long periods. There is also another interesting dynamic in the way they make music which suggests that its not about isolation but rather about working together. Broken Social Scene, Feist, and Most Serene Republic have produced some of the consistently interesting and changing music of the last 10 years and all work in large collaborative efforts with changing members and producers.
My current favorite Canuck is Dan Snaith, who manifested his music for many moons as Manitoba which suffered for being yet another clever electronica based muso amongst a sea of quasi techno bands and individuals. Dan is a maths PhD but he sees mathematics is an intuitive fun thing and his love of patterns and complexity drove him via his piano teacher into Yes and ELP. Luckily for all of us his music sounds nothing like that.
I liked Manitoba though because it had that great mix of analog instruments amongst the synths, like Keiran Hebden with Four Tet there actually is a guy strumming a guitar building the songs as much as noodling on ProTools on his Mac. I also will confess to a total bias for fat analog drums in amongst the digitally sampled soup which Snaith always does, a fabulous example is Brahminy Kite from Milk of Human Kindness.
Snaith is prolific in output and his recent releases have been in the form of Caribou. His latest opus is Swim and it lifts the spirits in a way that reflects how he takes the best of many influences and percolates them into great songs not just keyboard and loop noodles. He aims for and achieves the sound of liquids and flowing in Swim.
So if you are going to be stuck in a cabin in Dundas, Ontario waiting for the next hockey game what wine would you want to be sharing while listening to Caribou? Something complex yet not taking itself too seriously, dance music never can be taken too seriously, something with lots of different things going on? My choice would be the C Cubed or C3’s 2007 Tempranillo, big jaunty and very approachable yet lots of flavor and overtones cascading over themselves.
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