Caribou

Historically, electronic music has luxuriated in the cold sterility of clattering beats, unearthly keyboard tones and glitching loops. Now that most music is produced and enjoyed digitally, the separation between genres has shrunk, culminating symbolically with Caribou’s capture of 2008’s Polaris Music Prize (awarded to the top Canadian album) for 2007’s Andorra. The electronic psych-pop release projects the melodic warmth of ’60s psychedelic acts the Zombies and Love, filtered through a bleeping, hissing, thudding, synthetic mien. “My favorite music juxtaposes those two elements: the sense of space you get from traditional recording techniques next to something very digital,” says Caribou auteur Dan Snaith. His recent follow-up, Swim, channels a noisy, club-ready sound into structures where lyrics — often an afterthought — take on more weight. The result is a groovy grower of an album, blending the best of Aphex Twin and Four Tet.