NEW ALBUMS
DAPHNI
Cherry JIAOLONG
8/10
Caribou man loses himself to dance in wide-ranging side-project
What began a decade ago as a means for Dan Snaith to create more strippeddown and DJ-friendly sounds than Caribou’s maximalist psych-pop has gradually become something more expansive itself. Like 2017’s Joli Mai, Cherry sees the transplanted Canuck effortlessly flit between a diverse array of dance and electronic music modes, all of which he clearly knows and loves. Tantalising fragments of disco surface in tracks that meld ’80s techno, ’90s deep house and more surprising elements like the Arabic funk in “Always There” and the choppedup bebop in “Amber”. The welcome brevity of most tracks gives Snaith even more room to vary tempos and textures.