These two reissues clear the bins of records lingering under Caribou's pre-lawsuit (Google it) name Manitoba. Domino/Leaf celebrates the switchover with deluxe 2xCD editions, adding relevant singles and B-sides on the additional discs. It feels odd at first to see Dan Snaith's 2001 debut album re-christened a Caribou record-- it's so different from where he'd be two years later, it seemed right that it would remain a Manitoba project forever. Plus the record sounds so Manitoba-y, a quieter thing born of a place with vast spaces and frost on the ground and kids taking the bus to school when it's still dark out.
With Start Breaking My Heart, Snaith failed to carve out an original space in music, but he was still doing post-Boards of Canada IDM very well. Around this time Múm also entered the scene, trading on warm synth pads, kiddie vocals that hinted at youth slipping away, and song titles that showed an awareness of exactly the kind of effect the music was meant to evoke (Múm's "I'm 9 Today" vs. Manitoba's "Children Play Well Together"). The aesthetic worked so well at the time and I wanted to hear as much of it as possible.
If we've been since deluged with labels that release nothing but electronic music of this stripe, that shouldn't take away from the easy pleasure of Start Breaking My Heart. I still get a little lump in my throat when the cut-up and pitch-shifted vocals waft through "People Eating Fruit", like a soap bubble floating through an empty nursery. And Snaith tipped his hand early that he had more going on than the fluffier Morr moves, especially in his use of acoustic drums. "Mammals vs. Reptiles" and "Schedules & Fares" had the live instrumentation-- ride cymbals, acoustic bass, and horns-- that would become critical when his sound veered sharply on 2003's Up in Flames.
The Start Breaking bonus disc contains two 12" singles and a number of B-sides. Snaith was at this time wandering a bit, a man without a fixed style who could do many things well. A couple of tracks ("Webers", "If Assholes Could Fly, This Place Would Be an Airport") found him trying his hand at then-current two-step beats, while tracks like "218 Beverly" and "Anna and Nina" were extensions of the idyllic electronica of his debut. The bonus material is of a piece with Start Breaking My Heart but finds him testing the established boundaries that his next record would ignore completely.
Up in Flames announced itself as a change in direction when a swell of guitar and vocals introduced "I've Lived On A Dirt Road All My Life". Swirling, wordless vocals, chiming guitars, absurdly huge drum breaks, massive climaxes-- all the interests Snaith has pursued since were there in force on this first track. Having not listened to it for close to a year, I braced myself for disappointment, half-expecting to hear it with the ears of people bored by this record (and there are plenty of them out there). Nope, still works wonders for me.
If Start Breaking My Heart found pleasure in moments of serene contemplation, Up in Flames heard happiness as a loud, crashing thing that was messy and simple and pure. It's the kind of record where the joy you sense in its creation carries through to the listening completely undiminished-- a feeling reinforced by the Caribou live show, a tightly sequenced mix of pre-recorded tracks and live instrumentation in which almost every track builds to a thundering two drum kit peak. The sound Snaith debuted with on Up in Flames and developed with The Milk of Human Kindness is easy to describe in terms of other bands, blending Mercury Rev, Neu!, Brian Wilson, and a few others in specific proportions. It's most certainly a formula, but then, so is E=MC2.
The Up in Flames-era B-sides are mostly curiosities adding little to the overall picture. It's not hard to see why many of them were cut, as they come a little too close to tracks already on the album ("Cherrybomb") or relate more to the low-key serenity of the debut ("Silver Splinters" and "Seaweed"). All are enjoyable to varying degrees but none are essential; still, they make for a good bonus disc. So that's it, then: Manitoba is finally and completely dead, and the Caribou discography is made that much stronger.
