Nowhere is the blurring of Dan Snaith’s alter egos more apparent than in a live setting. Or, more specifically in my experience, the setting of Barcelona’s Primavera Sound: When the London-based producer was beginning to roll out his new Daphni album, Butterfly, last June, he played the opening festivities with a set dominated by the club-oriented material on Caribou’s latest album, Honey. A couple of years earlier, I’d caught his late-night set as Daphni when the then-dance-focused project was gaining steam off his 2022 album Cherry. With zero context around Snaith’s rich musical history, it could seem like Daphni had simply received an upgrade. On the new LP, Snaith acknowledges the convergence by “featuring” Caribou on highlight ‘Waiting So Long’, but more crucially seeks to stretch the perceived boundaries – and functional pulse – of Daphni, all with the live show in mind. “I guess the point of these Daphni records is to keep in mind a more expansive idea of dance music where the parameters are broad and the church is broad,” Snaith said in press materials. With Butterfly‘s dazzling, unfettered flow, he keeps the listener guessing, too.
1. Sad Piano House
No less satisfying for how self-explanatory it is, ‘Sad Piano House’ is also sneakily self-referential, updating the track ‘Cloudy’ from Daphni’s previous album. Like the track’s title, its sense of melancholy seems to have stuck the way we rarely intend it to; unspoken, or rather barely vocalized, unable to drown out a groove that also clearly isn’t going away anytime soon. For a moment, it almost steps out into another room, but the juxtaposing energies this one contains are too irresistible.
2. Clap Your Hands
The contrast between ‘Clap Your Hands’ and the opener is starker than that song’s internal contradictions; though similarly on-the-nose (you hope the handclaps are left to the audience in a live context), it seems to skip to the peak of a DJ set, where everybody’s bound to succumb to its hard bounce and wobbly bass. The only element complicating it is a searing noise that you wish turned out a bit more abrasive.
3. Hang
‘Hang’ is all tease, yet Snaith manages to stretch it to standard pop-song length, resting on bits of horn-infused release. Then it tightens and squiggles, rising to the foreground before being abruptly cut off.
4. Lucky
The track slinks down to the ground, keeping a mischievous grin on its face even as it turns the pulse ambient. By contrast, the bass stomping over it at random intervals sounds gargantuan.
5. Waiting So Long
The joyous, celebratory potential of dance music as affirmed by the Daphni project bears fruit on ‘Waiting So Long’, which is notably billed as a Caribou collaboration on account of its vocals. Four tracks is not a long time to wait for the album’s more anthemic side to emerge, but perhaps the confluence of Snaith’s aliases feels more long-awaited. Still, ‘Waiting So Long’ remains more about the waiting than the release, holding itself back just enough.
6. Napoleon’s Rock
Though transitory, ‘Napoleon’s Rock’ coasts on an organic arrangement that’s intriguing for the less-than-a-minute it lasts. What if he made more anthems out of these subtly complex strains of ideas?
7. Good Night Baby
Snaith is quick to offer an answer, delivering a gorgeously liminal and emotionally gooey track that apparently originated as mostly the final drums-heavy section. It’s ever-evolving in a way not every track on Butterfly is; a mid-album cut that would obviously go off as a set closer.
8. Talk to Me
Released as a pair with ‘Good Night Baby’, ‘Talk to Me’ is pitched as “polar opposite,” though not in the way that you might expect. It sounds like the kind of song poised for euphoric release, but crouches down right when you think it’s about to deliver. Rather than fleshing things out, the song became an exercise in restraint, which might underwhelm on a cursory listen – enough to tune it out and start talking – but can hit hard with the right headphones or, as Snaith puts it, “on a big soundsystem.”
9. Two Maps
Playful to the point of being cartoonish, ‘Two Maps’ also has one of the album’s most engaging progressions, as if more allergic to repetition than reliant on it. Though almost traditionalist rave music, it builds to a conclusion that’s infectiously off-kilter.
10. Josephine
Did you know that Dan Snaith, as Caribou, has collaborated with Fred.. again? I didn’t, but ‘Josephine’ had me wondering, and my suspicions were confirmed. If that idea is not particularly exciting to you, Snaith surprises the listener by twisting the track in a colourful direction after the first minute, as if hungry for a greater sense of abandon.
11. Miles Smiles
Neither an interlude nor a full-fledged song, the track glides on that liminal space Snaith is always good at thickening.
12. Goldie
As the album digs into more industrial sounds, the puckish vocal sample and metallic percussion prove that it’s a more audacious if dishevelled record than its predecessor, though at this point you’re eager for it to come alive again.
13. Caterpillar
And so it does, with a track that leaves no frequency uncoloured. Squibling, twinkling, shuffling – ‘Caterpillar’ has more than enough to keep you moving and wondering: What could the butterfly sound like?
14. Shifty
The track ratchets up the tempo, but not without continually twitching and threatening to derail it. I mean, it is called ‘Shifty’.
15. Invention
Like ‘Napoleon’s Rock’, ‘Invention’ creates a curious live-band feel without fully developing it. It’s almost off-putting, the way the harpsichord and jaw harp seem to vie for space in what’s already a pretty skeletal environment.
16. Eleven
Snaith finishes the album off with one of his most classically fleshed-out house tracks, infusing it with a sense of shimmering resolve. The synth melody is perfectly moody but unremarkable compared to the vocal samples that sneakily animate the track. It was accompanied by a music video showing an innertube being dragged on a lake, and to use the metaphor of the producer steering a boat, Snaith’s intention is never just to throw you off. But you can imagine him looking back and seeing a butterfly fluttering across the ocean’s surface, delighted at the thought of mimicking it.
