With every album Ontario-born studio whiz-kid Dan Snaith releases, he moves further from the mathy electro-hop he pioneered as the one-man band Manitoba, and closer to the shambling psychedelic orchestra he has developed under the moniker Caribou. Pressing PLAY on his fourth full-length is like being yanked down the rabbit hole; without warning, Snaith plunges into the swirling Sixties acid pop of groovy opener “Melody Day.” There are flashes of Animal Collective’s druggy jams, Spiritualized’s spaced-out atmospherics, and the Elephant Six Recording Company’s symphonic rackets in Andorra‘s densely packed tracks, which dreamily flutter by like footage on a vintage projector. Layers of flute loops, bells, drum fills, and warped strings cushion Snaith’s blissed-out harmonies on organized-chaos jams like “Eli” and “Sandy,” and though a few digital blips sneak onto the closer, “Niobe,” nothing disrupts the album’s beautifully chereographed mess.
