Caribou - Our Love (LP) - Pink Vinyl

Caribou’s Our Love arrived in October 2014 with the uncanny timing of a friend who knows when to drop by. Dan Snaith had already nailed a luminous blend of pop melody and club contours on Swim, but this one feels closer, more human, and more open-hearted. It is less about peak-time tricks and more about those moments around them, the build and the afterglow, where feeling sneaks in and stays.

“Can’t Do Without You” is the obvious way in. It starts like a secret, a single phrase looping and swelling until it becomes a crowd. On a good system you feel the low end deepen step by step, like someone turning the lights down in a room you trust. There is a reason this became a festival favourite and a set opener on tours that followed. The title track is the companion piece, airy and intimate, with Snaith’s falsetto riding crisp percussion and a soft pulse. Owen Pallett’s strings drift through it with just enough colour to push the emotion without smothering the groove.

Part of the album’s charm is how it keeps changing shape without breaking the spell. “Silver” glows with a melancholy that never turns maudlin, a drift of synth chords and small rhythmic tics that land in your chest. “Back Home” leans into heartbreak, the vocal chopped and layered, regret sketched in quick strokes rather than big statements. “Second Chance” brings in Jessy Lanza, whose voice floats like frost on glass over clipped drums. It is a smart bit of casting, folding Hyperdub cool into Snaith’s warm palette. Then there is “Mars,” all nervy percussion and odd angles, and “Julia Brightly,” a compact burst named for a friend and fellow traveller in electronic music who had passed away, the dedication lending an extra ache to its short life.

Snaith built these songs in his London home studio, and you can hear the space in them. The production is detailed but never busy, the drums are dry and close, the synths glow rather than glare. He has this knack for making dance music that feels good at modest volume, which is rarer than it sounds. The emotional centre is no accident either. In interviews around the time, he spoke about family and long-term love shaping the record. You can hear it in the patience of the arrangements and the way joy and uncertainty sit side by side. Even when the beats are steady, there is a softness to the touch that rewards repeat plays.

Critics heard it too. Pitchfork tagged it Best New Music, and it landed high on a stack of year-end lists. Back home in Canada the album won the 2015 Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year, and it was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize the same year. Those nods make sense, but what lasts is how playable it is. I have lost count of the times “Our Love” has rescued a flat room, or how often “Can’t Do Without You” has coaxed one more drink and one more chat out of friends who were halfway to the door.

If you are a vinyl person, this is one of those records that earns its spot in arm’s reach. The bass is rounded and forgiving, the mids have a gentle bloom, and the sequencing makes sense on a turntable. Side A is the rush, side B is the reflection. If you are crate-digging for Caribou vinyl, Our Love vinyl belongs near the top. It also plays nice with the rest of the Caribou albums on vinyl, a clean bridge between the woozy psychedelia of Andorra and the more widescreen edges of Suddenly. And if you are looking to buy Caribou records online in Australia, plenty of good shops keep it in rotation. Your local Melbourne record store will likely have a copy, and the better-curated corners of the vinyl records Australia world know how often people ask for it.

Ten years on, Our Love still feels like the sweet spot where dancefloor memory meets everyday life. It is subtle, but not slight. Romantic, but not sappy. The rare electronic album that works as a hug and a nudge at once. Pull it out on a Tuesday night and it will tidy the room. Drop it at 2 am and it will keep the lights on a little longer. That is its small miracle.