''Swim'' is the fifth studio album by Canadian musician

Dan Snaith Daniel Victor Snaith (born 29 March 1978) is a Canadian composer, musician, and recording artist. He has released 11 studio albums since 2000 and has recorded and performed under the stage names Caribou, Manitoba, and Daphni. His Caribou album ' ...

, released under the moniker Caribou on April 20, 2010, by

City Slang City Slang is an independent record label based in Berlin, Germany. History The independent music label City Slang was founded in 1990 as a European outpost for American indie rock. Thirty years later, the imprint represents a diverse roster o ...

and

Merge Merge, merging, or merger may refer to: Concepts * Merge (traffic), the reduction of the number of lanes on a road * Merge (linguistics), a basic syntactic operation in generative syntax in the Minimalist Program * Merger (politics), the comb ...

. It is his third album credited under Caribou and deviated from the

psychedelic pop Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is a genre of pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the mid-to-late 1960s, elements included " trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, ...

of his recent work and toward

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance musi ...

. The album straddles between more cerebral electronic music and more danceable electronic music. ''Swim'' continued the critical success set by Snaith and was critically acclaimed upon its release, later making several publications' year-end best album lists. It was recognized as one of "The 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far" by ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' in August 2014. ''Swim Remixes'', a compilation of remixes from the album, was released in 2010 by

Merge Records Merge Records is an independent record label based in Durham, North Carolina. It was founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan. It began as an outlet for music from their band Superchunk and music created by friends, and has expand ...

and features remixes by artists such as Junior Boys,

Fuck Buttons Fuck Buttons were a British electronic music duo formed in 2004 in Bristol by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power. Their noise-influenced work received wide critical acclaim in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Biography Origins (2004–2008) ...

, and

Nite Jewel Ramona Gonzalez (known professionally as Nite Jewel) is an American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California that is currently based in Oakland. Biography Ramona Gonzalez began as Nite Jewel in 2008 as the result of her juggling music with ...

Background

''Swim'' was, according to Snaith, "pretty much me getting up every day and wanting to work on music. Working constantly on it. Making loads and loads and loads of music and then just sifting through to find the bits that I like". Playing more DJ gigs, such as those at London's Plastic People, influenced the musician to embrace dance music and a greater range of frequencies in his music, which led to the formulation of ''Swim''. Nevertheless, about 700 songs, some unfinished, did not make it onto the album. "Jamelia" features vocals by Luke Lalonde of

Born Ruffians Born Ruffians are a Canadian indie rock band based in Toronto. Officially founded in 2004 in the Georgian Bay town of Midland, Ontario, the band is composed of frontman Luke Lalonde, bassist Mitch DeRosier, drummer Steve Hamelin, and keyboardis ...

Reception

''Swim'' received acclaim from critics, being assigned a Metascore of 83 by

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. It was a shortlisted nominee for the

2010 Polaris Music Prize The 2010 edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize was presented on September 20, 2010. and was named the Best Album of 2010 by ''

Resident Advisor ''Resident Advisor'' (also known as ''RA'') is an online music magazine and community platform established in 2001 and dedicated to showcasing electronic music, artists and events across the globe. Its editorial team provides news, music and ev ...

''. The album also won the Juno Award in 2010 for Best Electronic Album of the Year and was awarded the second spot in ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...

s 2010 Electronic Year in Review. Daniel Sylvester of ''Exclaim!'' praised the organic nature of the album, claiming "Caribou will be remembered for Swim." As of 2011, it has sold 33,803 copies in US. As of 2015 it has sold 175,000 copies worldwide according to

Independent Music Companies Association The Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA), originally the Independent Music Publishers and Labels Association, is a non-profit trade association established in 2000 to help European independent record labels represent their agenda a ...

. Publications ranking ''Swim'' on their end-of-year lists included: *1st

*1st

Urban75 Urban75, also known as U75 or simply Urban, is a website and internet forum based in Brixton, London, and online since 1995. History Urban75 originated from a football comic ''Bluebird Jones'' - an e-zine formed around football fans opposition ...

*1st

Mixmag ''Mixmag'' is a British electronic dance and clubbing magazine published in London. Launched in 1983 as a print magazine, it has branched into dance events, including festivals and club nights. History The first issue of ''Mixmag'' was printe ...

*4th

musicOMH ''MusicOMH'' (stylized as ''musicOMH'') is a London-based online music magazine which publishes independent reviews, features and interviews from across all genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B. History ''MusicOMH'' was founded an ...

*6th

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

*17th

*19th Drowned In Sound *39th

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

*58th

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

The first track on the album, "Odessa", was featured in a commercial for the automobile manufacturer Acura, the football video game by

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they imitated real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) ...

, ''

FIFA 11 ''FIFA 11'', titled ''FIFA Soccer 11'' in North America, is a football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts worldwide under the EA Sports label. It was released on 28 September 2010 in North America, 30 Se ...

'', as well as in a 2011 Lexus CT 200h commercial, and a 2012

Tissot Tissot SA () is a Swiss luxury watch brand owned by the Swatch Group. The company was founded in Le Locle, Switzerland by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son, Charles-Émile Tissot, in 1853. Tissot is not associated with Mathey-Tissot, anoth ...

commercial for watches.

Track listing

Charts

References

External links

''Swim''
at official Caribou website * {{Authority control 2010 albums Dan Snaith albums City Slang albums Merge Records albums Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year albums