Pitchfork

As previously reported, Dan Snaith's latest opus as Caribou-- Andorra-- hits August 21 via new Caribou home Merge in North America, and the day before in Europe via City Slang.

Pitchfork caught up with Snaith for a little chat about the characters who inhabit Andorra, his collaboration with Junior Boy Jeremy Greenspan, palette-cleansing trampoline lessons, and his sordid past in a short-lived "white suburban P-Funk" band.

Snaith visited the real Andorra, a tiny tax-haven of a European nation with a chart-topping life expectancy, while traveling last year. "I was there passing through the South of France into Spain," he told us. "I kind of imagined what the name evoked: It sounds like the name of a place and the name of a person as well-- which is very romantic and has a lot of vivid or imaginative connotations for me.

"While I was recording," he continued, "these characters living in my imagination ended up in the songs. I recorded in this kind of introspective fashion where I'd be imagining something much more than the bedroom that I was actually recording in. I kind of wanted a place for all these characters to live and that's why I wanted the name of the album to be a place." Hence, Andorra.

If talk of characters has you queasy, you may put your Caribou-goes-concept-rock fears to rest. "The characters are just kind of sketched to the degree that they're needed to, to write the song around," said Snaith. "It's not like there's a narrative that runs through all the songs or anything like that."

You may put your autobiographical naval-gazing fears to rest as well. "I find it more exciting to look inside somebody's imagination," Dan offered. "That's how I see this album, as being a window, and those kind of fictional things are imagination going on inside my head. It's more of a headspace album than it is documenting people that I actually know-- but certain elements may creep into it from my life, I suppose."

Indeed, longtime fans should be thrilled to find a record that's "not going to really really surprise people that've heard my last two records"-- and one that has Dan at his most focused: "Since January 2006 until a month ago," explained Snaith, "for the first time in my life, I wasn't having to do two things at the same. I wasn't in school [where Snaith completed a Ph.D in mathematics] and working on music. It was just recording, recording, recording."

Snaith, who admits "I tend to be an obsessive, controlling personality," indeed controlled the album's creation, playing, recording, and producing everything on it. The results, in Dan's words: an album "packed [with] as many musical ideas as possible. As many strong melodies and harmonies. I tried to make every single second maximized as much as possible, cram as many musical ideas as possible."

The lone exception to Snaith's iron-fisted creative reign is the song "She's the One", which features co-writing credits and guest vocals from Junior Boy and one-time tourmate Jeremy Greenspan.

"I'm a really bad collaborator because I'm so controlling," Snaith again admitted. "You know, it's hard for me to actually exchange ideas with people, I think. But ["She's the One"] worked. I was surprised...it worked so well. The song really plays to both of our strengths."

Turns out Dan and Jeremy have been acquainted for some time. "We actually played against one another other in a battle of the bands in high school," said Snaith. "I kind of always knew him."

This, however, was no battle of ecstatic psychedelics vs. suave electro-pop. "At that point in my life," Snaith revealed, "I was in a number of stupid bands, as most people are. I was into Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer. I was also getting into Parliament and Funkadelic and I assembled this white suburban version of a P-Funk band."

In true P-Funk fashion, "We were called the Cro-Nasal Sapiens. That's the scoop right there; you better be careful who you tell that to!" [Whoops --Ed.]

Seems a young Mr. Greenspan wasn't faring much better. "Jeremy was into all sorts of dodgy shit," joked Snaith. "[But] nowhere near as dodgy as the shit that I was listening to, as you can tell. I think he was into Pink Floyd, and maybe [his band was] spacey and Pink Floydish, which is probably closer to what I'm doing now than what he's doing now, I suppose."

While cooped up writing and recording Andorra, Dan countered cabin fever-- and distanced himself from those high school memories-- with some unique recreational activity: trampoline lessons.

"It was a good distraction," reasoned Snaith. "I needed something that I could obsess over that wasn't this album that I was obsessing over the entirety of the rest of my time."

Um, trampoline lessons? "There's four trampolines set up, and they're kind of big like," explained Snaith. "They teach you step-by-step to do all these moves, as if it's gymnastics or something. And I'm just like, 'This is the most absurd, obscure-- why would anybody spend their time doing it?' Except that it's a lot of fun and, I don't know, it was a good alternative to doing some other kind of boring exercise."

"I'm still perfecting the back somersault at this point," Snaith added. "I'm just a slow learner."

Look out for a full-blown Caribou tour-- with live band-- this fall.