While Daniel Snaith used his project Caribou to create music mostly from the songwriting-perspective (and successfully so), he founded Daphni last year in order to be able to adopt the freedoms of a DJ in a club as his own. Within a club-qualified stream, orientation and predictability are no longer an issue, and so the composer has a lead over the listeners – and, according to Daphni’s apparent approach, that very lead has a liberating effect. Hence, the first LP »Jiaolong« (pronounced »jow-long«), which was released recently, has far more to offer than fragments from the Caribou-work. On the one hand, Daniel Snaith proves his sound-wizard skills once again (the whole record was produced with a home-made modular synthesizer) with loving attention to detail and a broad sound-spectrum. On the other hand, Daphni mostly characterizes Snaith’s compositional work, which is committed to the logic of the synth in the very best interest of club-music. At the same time, it shows a constant reluctance to predictability without damaging his compositional touch for dynamics and harmonies. On most parts of the album, this approach works just fine (»Ahora«, »Ye Ye«), even though it sometimes gets lost within the newly gained freedom and playfulness (»Pairs«, »Springs«).
Jiaolong
