Early arrivals at this first of a four-night run are handed cardboard masks featuring composer and chief Caribou Dan Snaith’s face, blown up to three times its usual size. For many, it’s as close as they’ll get to glimpsing the unassuming Canadian maths boffin tonight, dry ice and a remarkably low stage hiding him and his bandmates from view. This absence of a visual focus – plus the venue’s steamy sweatbox ambience – conjure an atmosphere less gig and more club night: perfect for Snaith’s strong pivot towards the dancefloor on new album Honey.
It’s the latest evolutionary step for Caribou, who have previously cycled through blissful dream-pop, cerebral electronica, and sadface R&B confessions. Tonight offers glimpses of Snaith’s more wildcard phases: mesmeric, psychedelic krautrock epic Sun; the gamelan-clanging space-funk of Bowls. The lion’s share of the set focuses on new material, however, which takes a more direct route to dancefloor nirvana, one Snaith has been signalling since 2014’s Our Love and his releases as side-project Daphni.
