Caribou - Suddenly (LP)

Caribou’s Suddenly arrived on 28 February 2020 through Merge in North America and City Slang in Europe, and it felt like a record built for connection just as the world shut its doors. Dan Snaith had talked about how the title nods to those sharp turns life throws at you, family events that hit fast and rearrange your sense of time. You can hear that push and pull everywhere here, the way these songs bloom, swerve, and then lock into a feeling that lingers long after the last note.

Snaith’s home‑studio fingerprints are all over it, in the best way. He plays and produces with that meticulous ear fans know from Swim and Our Love, then lets little imperfections and sudden dropouts keep the music human. The opener Sister sets the tone with a hushed mantra and a few well‑placed chords, then You and I unfurls like a memory push‑pulling between tenderness and panic. It’s one of those tracks that shows his knack for dynamics, turning on a dime from intimate vocals to synaesthetic surges of synth and percussion.

Home remains the standout emotional wallop. It samples Gloria Barnes’ 1971 soul cut of the same name, and Snaith treats that voice with real care, looping it into a warm, crackling pulse that makes the track feel like a conversation across decades. It’s the kind of sample choice that says as much about his listening diet as his production chops, and it gives the album a centre of gravity. If you’re crate‑digging for Caribou vinyl, this is a track that will get spun to the label’s wear.

Then there’s Never Come Back, one of his most immediate dance tracks under the Caribou name. It lands with the quick hit of his Daphni releases, but it’s sweeter around the edges, a proper house sprint with a vocal hook you’ll hum while waiting for your coffee. In another timeline, that bassline would have been shaking floors from clubs to a Melbourne record store listening station every weekend of 2020. Sunny’s Time flips the script again, built around a woozy piano motif and jittery drum programming that feels like a daydream mutating into a late‑night detour. New Jade and Lime keep the momentum without repeating themselves, moving between glassy textures and chopped vocals that never feel like tricks for their own sake.

What makes Suddenly stick is the songwriting under all the cleverness. These are concise, singable pieces that just happen to be draped in pristine sound design. Snaith still has a soft spot for unexpected edits, the kind that pull the floor for half a second before the groove snaps back in place. But he’s not hiding behind them. Cloud Song closes things out with patience and a slow‑build catharsis that feels earned, a reminder that Caribou albums on vinyl reward you for sitting with the whole arc rather than cherry‑picking singles.

Critics were quick to clock it. Pitchfork tapped it with Best New Music and The Guardian gave it strong marks, both circling the same idea, that Snaith’s restlessness serves the emotion rather than distracting from it. Back home in Canada, Suddenly made the 2020 Polaris Music Prize shortlist, which feels right. It’s a pop record, a dance record, and a private diary entry, all at once.

On wax, the album breathes. The low end on Never Come Back is rounder, Home has that extra fleck of air around the sample, and the quiet-loud pivots land with more detail. If you’re looking to buy Caribou records online, this is the one to start with if you love a front‑to‑back listen that still offers three or four floor‑ready gems. If you’re sifting through vinyl records Australia wide, or digging in Fitzroy on a Saturday, keep an eye out for Suddenly vinyl, since the pressing does justice to the album’s delicacy and heft.

Snaith has always blurred lines between the lab and the lounge room, the club and the kitchen table. Suddenly is where that balance feels most natural. It’s full of tiny production easter eggs, yes, but the songs stick because they speak to that moment when life tilts, when everything changes at once, then slowly settles into a new shape. Years on, it still feels timely, which might be the quiet trick this record pulls off better than any of his others.