Caribou – Andorra

This album completely threw me. I was expecting something sort of minimalist and electronic, an assumption based purely on the name of the artist and the name of the album; a cold wintry sound that might accompany a late night skiing video. However I was surprised to be presented with something that sounded like a lost baroque pop artefact from the psychedelic 60s reinvented for the new millennium. It was like stumbling across an unknown album by The Zombies that had been remixed by The Beta Band. The opening track just cracks off at full pace without any warning, almost as if you’ve forgotten to rewind the tape but of course this is a CD so that can’t be the case. Flutes, organs and voices in pleasant harmony swirl and merge to create a stunningly accessible sound. As the album progresses the instrumentation and vocals slowly get stripped away until at the end you’re left with something sort of minimalist and electronic, which was nice. This is the kind of album that you’d hear as the soundtrack to the coolest barbeque ever. A barbeque where it’s always a warm sunny evening in August with a gentle breeze that smells of lavender and everyone eats tasty skewers with five types of meat that have been cooked by Japanese robots and the drinks have been made by monkeys wearing bow ties and your garden backs onto the Mediterranean and… 9/10