Many electronic producers double as DJs, and most DJs also produce, but Dan Snaith is more versatile than most. Since 2001, the music he makes as Caribou has set a high standard for melodic, propulsive, sonically adventurous indie dance. Then there's Caribou the live act, which expands Snaith's studio material for a full band-not just interpreting the songs, but radically transforming them. Finally, Snaith moonlights as Daphni, turning out sleek funk and disco edits for his famously wide-ranging DJ sets.
The sweep of Snaith's output, spanning home-listening faves and underground club heaters alike, makes him a fitting figure to spotlight as Spotify relaunches its Altar playlist. Dedicated to alternative electronic music and club culture -spanning house, bass, techno, downtempo, and just about every conceivable permutation thereof-Altar reflects the kinds of sounds that Snaith spent nearly 20 years pioneering.
This February, Snaith will release Suddenly, the first new Caribou album in more than five years. The first single, Home, dropped in October, and the second single, You and I, earlier this month. When For the Record reached Dan Snaith at his studio in London, he was working on preparations for the band's upcoming tour. It's all starting to become real, he said. It's been so long that I'm just so excited to get it going again.
We spoke with Snaith about his creative process, his upcoming album, and the state of electronic music right now.
Home, the first single from the forthcoming Caribou album, almost sounds like it could be a Daphni song. How do those two projects inform each other? There are definitely some Caribou tracks that almost could have been Daphni tracks, like Bowls on Swim or Mars on Our Love. It's kind of magnetic: Sometimes there's an attraction; sometimes it's the opposite. After the Daphni album in 2017 was when I really started making this new Caribou record in earnest. It was like, okay, now I can have more all-encompassing tracks that explore harmony or lyrics, whereas Daphni is specifically about making music that's club-focused. Home kind of sits apart from a lot of the other stuff on the record, actually. There are things that are reminiscent of Daphni, but I think there's a lot that's quite far away from that world as well.
With Caribou, are you gathering pieces of songs before you actually sit down to make the album in earnest, or are you starting from scratch? I'm gathering pieces all the time. I'll have a verse for a year and then eventually I come up with a chorus, or some switch gets flipped and another piece of the song comes together. There are some loops on the new record that existed even before Our Love was finished. I sit down in the studio every day and I make four or five 30-second-long loops, little ideas. So if you think about how long I've been making this record, now I've got a playlist with 900 ideas in it. Then it's this editing process, funneling things down over a long period of time, to get minutes of music out of hours and hours and hours of stuff. Which sounds torturous, and sometimes it is, but that's the thing that I most enjoy, starting from nothing and making some kind of idea.
Let's talk about the state of electronic music. What sounds are you particularly excited about right now? When I started in the early 2000s, the idea of somebody in experimental electronic music working on a Timbaland or a Neptunes record seemed totally absurd. Currently, there's a much closer connection between experimental electronic music and the mainstream. It's kind of hard to draw a boundary anymore. Now everything is electronic music, in a technical sense. Everybody's recording on the same tools, whether you're making a Taylor Swift record or a Skee Mask record.
That said, there have been times when I felt like I understood where the momentum in the electronic music world was. In 2008, 2009, living in London, meeting people like Floating Points, Joy Orbison, the Hessle Audio guys, it was like, wow, there's something really exciting and focused happening. It was easy to feed off that energy. Now, it doesn't feel like there's a central narrative, but what's exciting about what's happening is that there are many more diverse voices in electronic music than there used to be 10 or 15 years ago.
It's been a while since any significant new genres have emerged. Do you sense anything new on the horizon? When I was in high school, I heard jungle for the first time, and I couldn't even wrap my head around it. I haven't had that shock-of-the-new feeling for a long time. I hear individual producers with new ideas, but not something so completely new as a genre that it allows for a whole world to jump out of it. Presumably that will happen again.
It sometimes seems like there's so much electronic music out there now that there isn't the chance for consensus to build. I feel like people are waiting for it. Everybody is talking about what a big tune that Overmono track Le Tigre is. Now that the Caribou album is done, I'm excited to get out there and be playing, but I'm also sneakily going to start thinking about making club music again, because I'll be out there doing shows, maybe I'll play at the occasional after-party. It's moments like that that get me geared up like, Okay, I gotta make something that, like, bangs in a club.
You've been around since the days of actual physical crate-digging in record stores, and a lot of the music you make as Daphni is rooted in sampling rarities. How has streaming changed the way you discover music? I think I've learned about more new and exciting music digitally than I did when I was mostly digging through dusty piles of records, althou
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...
02/07/2026
Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables
Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026
0 Comments
An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...
02/07/2026
Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...
02/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might thin...
01/07/2026
Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has announced the appointment of Kathy Samuels ...
01/07/2026
Shade has announced Custom Objects and Automations, a platform expansion releasing June 29, 2026, that adds database and workflow automation capabilities direct...
01/07/2026
FOR-A America has announced the addition of Jaz Wray and Fernando Cruz to its U.S. sales team. Both report to Ernie Leon, Senior VP and Head of Sales and Strate...
01/07/2026
NBC Sports will air all 15 MLB games nationally on Sunday, July 5, across NBC, P...
01/07/2026
Clear-Com has announced a wireless communications upgrade for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, deploying FreeSpeak II and FreeSpeak Icon systems across both prod...
01/07/2026
England's performance team will use Sony's STATSports APEX GPS tracking system to monitor player physical data in real time during FIFA World Cup 2026 m...
01/07/2026
Adder Technology has announced the appointment of Neil Hillier as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Hillier succeeds Adrian Dickens, who transiti...
01/07/2026
Bitcentral, Inc. has announced a strategic transaction creating two separate companies. The Production and Playout business will continue as Bitcentral, now own...
01/07/2026
DAZN has announced results from DAZN48, its creator initiative for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Launched in April 2026, the program received thousands of applicatio...
01/07/2026
Sarah Rose, VP, global services, Daktronics (NASDAQ: DAKT), will be inducted into the Information Display and Entertainment Association (IDEA) Hall of Fame at t...
01/07/2026
Gravity Media and the World Economic Forum's production team provided broadc...
01/07/2026
Insight Productions has announced the launch of Insight Storm, a 53-foot mobile broadcast unit built for esports production. The truck is built around a Ross Vi...
01/07/2026
ESPN has announced several content initiatives marking America's 250th anniversary, as part of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Celebrates America pro...
01/07/2026
Eleven production kits, REMI workflows, and cloud distribution bring 40 World Cu...
01/07/2026
The conference also discussed the opportunities offered an industry that is endu...
01/07/2026
The Mountain West Conference has announced the launch of MW , a direct-to-consumer streaming platform powered by Kiswe. The platform will carry live Mountain We...
01/07/2026
New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more
Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...
01/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
01/07/2026
Exclusive run of limited-edition modelling pedals
Sweetwater and Andertons M...
01/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the ca...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camera bag collection for modern h...
01/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition
Brie Clayton July 1, 2026
0 Comments
Volunteers use ATEM Mini Pro, Blackmagic Desig...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
PlayBox Technology has published State of Broadcast Infrastructure 2026, an in-depth industry research report examining the technologies, operational challenges...
01/07/2026
LONDON, UK, 1 JULY Jigsaw24 has appointed Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media and Entertainment, reinforcing its continued investment in helping broadcaster...
01/07/2026
Content Vault, the patent-pending secure content distribution platform protecting high-value media from disclosures, theft and unauthorised access, today announ...
01/07/2026
Bitcentral, Inc. a leading provider of enterprise software and digital media solutions for news, sports and entertainment broadcasters, as well as streaming pla...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/07/2026
Groundbreaking First Nations Screen Business Accelerator launched through nation...
Many electronic producers double as DJs, and most DJs also produce, but Dan Snaith is more versatile than most. Since 2001, the music he makes as Caribou has set a high standard for melodic, propulsive, sonically adventurous indie dance. Then there's Caribou the live act, which expands Snaith's studio material for a full band-not just interpreting the songs, but radically transforming them. Finally, Snaith moonlights as Daphni, turning out sleek funk and disco edits for his famously wide-ranging DJ sets.
