Review
Genre and Mood
Caribou’s “Odessa” is electronic dance music with an indie songwriter at its centre. It is hypnotic in the way it lulls, and melancholic underneath: Drowned in Sound heard “an intravenous injection of bliss”, while Stereogum heard warm yet shadowy synth textures and a moody tone.
Song Summary
“Odessa” opens Swim, the 2010 album on which Dan Snaith set out to make dance music that sounds as if it were made of water rather than metal. Snaith himself called it a pop song, set apart from the album’s dancefloor tracks. Its lyric, Attack Magazine writes, tells the story of a failing relationship; Drowned in Sound heard a woman standing up for her choices.
Musical Breakdown
Intro: F Minor Before the Voice
Tuned percussion hits and effects, all in F minor according to Attack Magazine, set the key over what Stereogum calls a clanging, clattering beat.
Verse: Four Notes Underneath
Under the verses the bassline plays four notes: D-flat, C, F, then F an octave lower. There are no chords as such; the harmony is implied by the bass and by Snaith’s melody, which he murmurs more than sings.
Chorus: The Hook
The song follows a clear verse-chorus form. Stereogum compares its recurring hook to the wordless chorus of M83’s Midnight City.
Middle: Layers in Motion
The layers keep changing. A bell playing C and A-flat comes in, Attack places it at 1:50, and off-beat synth plucks alternate between A-flat and G.
Outro
None of our sources describes how the track ends, so listen for yourself to how its layers leave.
Concepts in Focus
The bassline of “Odessa” is, in Attack Magazine’s words, a masterclass in simplicity: four notes, punchy and off-kilter as The Skinny put it, carrying a song that has almost no chords.
That bass is also sampling: its sound is a note taken from a work by the French acousmatic composer Bernard Parmegiani, played as an instrument. A fragment of experimental music becomes the pulse of a pop single.
The album shows mixing as its own stage. Swim was written and recorded first; Snaith then took it to Bryn Derwen Studio in north Wales to mix with David Wrench, through half-inch tape, Pro Tools, an analogue console and EMT plate reverbs.
Artistic Context
Dan Snaith is a Canadian musician who recorded as Manitoba before becoming Caribou. Swim, released on 20 April 2010 by City Slang and Merge, moved him away from psychedelic pop toward dance music, after DJ nights at London’s Plastic People; hundreds of ideas were discarded on the way. The video for “Odessa” was directed by Video Marsh.
Impact and Reception
Swim was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, won the Juno for Electronic Album of the Year and was Resident Advisor’s album of 2010. “Odessa” found a life of its own in FIFA 11 and in commercials for Acura, Lexus and Tissot. Start the album here and let it carry you in.
