Daphni – Jiaolong
Jiaolong: 2012
Dan Snaith was never going to be one to sit back and watch the world go by. We’re talking about a man who gained a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College London, and then dropped it all to become a musician, and a very successful one at that. His recordings under the name Caribou have earned him a plethora of awards, including the 2008 Polaris Music Prize for the album Andorra and the 2011 Juno Electronic Album of the Year award for the excellent album Swim.
But recently Snaith has grown restless yet again. Daphni is his most recent moniker; one he uses to record more house-orientated music, and by that I mean 2am, sweat-dripping-off-the-walls, serious house vibes. After dropping a handful of singles on limited 12”s, along comes Jiaolong, the first LP recorded under the name Daphni.
Hit play on the first track, “Yes I Know”, and you’re thrown headfirst into the deep-end. Squelchy kick drums, crunchy hi-hats and an elasticated bass-line that all sit quite seamlessly on top of an excellent chopped up sample taken from “The Segment” by Buddy Miles are the first things you will hear, and it’s a joy to behold. Following this is “Ne Noya (Daphni Mix)”, a rework of an African 7” so rare that the musicians couldn’t even be found to license the track. It’s also the first of many African influences that can be found on the record. Whether it’s a sample of African funk musician William Onyeabor on “Ye Ye”, the polyrhythmic bongo patterns that kick off the track “Pairs”, or the more subtle, twisting, airy flute line on “Ahora”, the way that Snaith has managed to incorporate these segments into what is still very much a house LP is impeccable.
Another example of Snaith’s midas touch is the way he manipulates sounds on the fly in such a playful and random manner, like a toddler who’s just got their hands on play-doh for the first time. The claustrophobic, metallic-reverb applied to the sample on “Yes I Know”, the descending bleeps and bloops emanating around the track “Light”, the weird laser gun-esque sounds on “Springs” and even the noodling, middle-eastern sounding keys on “Jiao” all sound like they were improvised during the recording of each track. These minor touches give Jiaolong a very raw feel, something that is truly refreshing and a million miles away from the overly polished house music that is all too frequent nowadays.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the ideas started to dry up about halfway through the record. Tracks like “Jiao” and “Springs”, whilst still being tracks that would fill a dance-floor, lack the same innovative and invigorating ideas that make up the first half of the album (the first three tracks in particular). There is also an obvious lack of cohesion between the tracks when playing the LP all the way through, although does the listener really expect cohesion from a record comprised of deep and stimulating house music?
Although it may not quite work as an LP in the traditional sense, Jiaolong is an intelligent and excellently produced collection of playful, frenetic tracks that dig deep into the roots of dance music whilst at the same time injecting it with something funky as hell. The highlights on this album (“Ye Ye”, “Yes I Know”, “Ahora”) may outshine the rest of the tunes, but Dan Snaith on a bad day is equivalent to 99 percent of house producers on a good day.
4 out of 5