Milk of Human Kindness
Label: Domino
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Milk of Human Kindness
Having avoided courtroom comeuppance for trading under the Manitoba pseudonym, the fortuitous producer and math scholar Dan Snaith pushes onward, this time as Caribou. After the sunny ’60s/electronica blend of 2003’s Up in Flames, Snaith’s return to his laptop on Milk is just as satisfying as its predecessor. His work is even more varied here, occasionally traveling softer folk roads, such as the hangover backdrop piece “Hello Hammerheads,” but the album spins out of control just as often as Flames. The hip-hop breaks and piano on “Lord Leopard” come together like a Caribou/Kid Koala team-up; also, Snaith seemingly revisits “Paperback Writer” in a quite inexplicable manner during a guitar loop on “Bees.” Some people who have a Ph.D. in mathematics spend their lives sadistically torturing classrooms full of people who don’t. Fortunately, Dan Snaith decided to pursue music instead, managing to keep an entirely different group of people wondering just what he’s up to.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2005.