Whatever mood you are in, there’s a Dan Snaith track. From his breakthrough album as Caribou, Swim, to the Grammy-nominated Our Love, and through to the soul-stirring, deeply personal Suddenly Canadian, electronic artist Dan Snaith has made some of the most incredible electronic albums of the last 20 years. However, Snaith has also forged a no less thrilling parallel career under the name Daphni.
While Caribou is the more song-oriented, musically diverse project, Daphni is the easily definable club-ready counterpoint. It’s the moniker he uses if he wants to cut loose and shake the dancefloor. That was certainly the case on the previous album, Cherry, which felt like Snaith freeing himself to indulge after the meticulously crafted Caribou album, Suddenly. However, even on that record, there were sure signs that the line between the two projects had begun to blur.
That was again evident on Caribou’s last album, 2024’s festival-ready, Honey. Alive with impulsive moments of joy, as if finally being able to paint with the brightest colours, the framework of many of the tracks could just as easily have turned up in one of Daphni’s legendary DJ sets. None of this is better illustrated by the sight of Caribou tearing through the Daphni/Caribou credited “Waiting So Long” at his recent run of live shows.
The contrast between the two projects is certainly less pronounced on the new album Butterfly. Naturally, it shares much of Honey‘s DNA, but this is far from a mere continuation. It mines the familiar, then pushes it into unfamiliar directions. Most importantly, it’s a record that’s fully primed to energise and fine-tuned to rattle the bones of festival goers around the world.
Opener “Sad Piano House” couldn’t be more aptly named. Over bouncing house beats, he threads in twinkling piano notes straight from a Parisian cafe. There’s a timelessness and a sense of melancholy that feels very in keeping with his Caribou output.
The same cannot be said of the album’s first weapons-grade, stone-cold banger, “Clap Your Hands”. A track so clever in its streamlined simplicity that it quickly overwhelms the senses, sounding deliciously spontaneous. Made for the Japanese electronic festival, Rainbow Disco Club, it oozes with the unfettered joy he must have felt when making it. The relentless “Hang keeps things moving. With its gyrating percussion and disco horn stabs, it filters house through a 1970s game show.
“Lucky” is an ambient, dub-infused palette cleanser which segues into the aforementioned “Waiting So Long”. Understandably, it may seem odd to credit this as a Daphni/Caribou co-write, since it is the same person. However, it actually makes perfect sense considering this is the first Daphni track to feature Snaith’s unmistakable vocals. While the sunny, house rhythms are pure Daphni, his familiar, tender voice flows through it like a comforting, warm breeze. It’s a song that’ll remain a fixture for both projects for years to come.
With clipped samples and warm synth surges, “Good Night Baby” is similarly uplifting, but with a reassuring warmth that elevates it beyond a simple dance track. It’s a wonderful example of his ability to find bliss in electronic sounds and could just as easily have been a cosy bed for a Caribou tune. This is a Daphni record, though, and the midsection pulls free of comparisons with his more well-known project.
In “Talk to Me”, he gets a little darker. Warped vocal samples provide the unsettling hook while a slinky bassline drives it forward. “Two Maps” is a hyperkinetic mix of descending synth lines and abstract sounds. Beautifully disordered, it’s akin to playing Tetris with all the blocks descending at once. As it pulls the listener in seven different directions, it builds to a drop that could trigger seismic activity in a club crowd.
The blissed-out “Josephine” shows off all of Snaith’s production wizardry. It slowly ascends the club mountain, morphing into a dancefloor stomper with woozy synths and soulful loops, giving way to vivid house synths and thundering beats. The acid-dub of “Miles Smiles” with its steel drums and rolling bassline feels like another foray into uncharted territory.
Meanwhile, “Goldie” is a moodier counterpoint with its syncopated, industrial beats and malevolent vocal samples. “Caterpillar” is much more playful, with rapid percussion punctuated by colourful streaks of synths. It soon puts paid to any notion that the album will struggle to maintain its momentum as it enters the final third.
“Shifty” is as far removed from Caribou as you could get. Ramping up the BPM, Snaith wrings out every last bit of energy from the machines on a full-on house barnstormer. “Invention” finds him at his most spontaneous, as if each part is put down on the fly, like laying the track as the train is in motion. Over arpeggiated synths, Snaith pulls all the record’s threads together on album closer “Eleven”. The sparkling synths, the pulsing beats, the cosmic vocal samples mark a celebratory, euphoric conclusion that you’ll never want to end.
As expected, Butterfly is the sound of Snaith at his most musically loose-limbed and instinctive, but there is little doubt that the lines between his two main artistic outputs continue to blur. Both contain moments that stir the soul, but both make you want to let go and just dance. Butterfly is made to get you moving, designed for the club, but it will sound equally as massive in the living room discos.