caribou – our love

i can’t do without you
and you’re the only thing i think about
it’s all that i can still do
you know you’re the one i dream about
i couldn’t do without you

it has been uncommon for me to write about an album i’ve just bought, let alone by a musician who is untested for me. it’s even less common for it to be something like this.

i’m actually listening to radio again, through my television, which is something that hasn’t happened for about ten years. it partly explains why i’m delving into new music again like i have not done since i was in my twenties, when i was far more open minded than i think i am these days.

i find myself, sometimes – as i did then – doing my own thing with the radio playing in the background, not really paying attention. occasionally snapping into a moment of clarity as a piece of music hits a part of my psyche otherwise disengaged. this happened with caribou. and it actually reminds me of electronic music that was pervasive in the early to mid 1990s, so perhaps it was predestined? maybe i was missing something i didn’t realise i was missing?

double j had been flogging it, i knew that. but on a warm evening with the windows wide open, thoughts flashing through my mind about the most significant thing in my life to date; probably holding my chest as it ached; these beats, not cold, not depressive, found me willing to receive their intended objective. a kind of qualified happiness.

all the elements of songs like the eponymous our love, and julia brightly, for instance, are clear and crisp, and perhaps took him back there as well. there’s something oddly nostalgic about it – homage. mars reminds me of music that australian electronic artists were producing at the same time, that took a lot of cues from the 1980s, including eight-bit computer games. histories of histories across various media and places.

strangely, this is the first time i’ve actually tagged love in all two hundred and fifty nine entries – in spite of all the clear and present love songs strewn throughout the thousands. and it is not simply because of the stated intent of the album and the music. it has commenced a pre-emptive mixtape; one that may never be sent or heard, but that means the world.

it’s not a single bit of irony that the most meaningful and infectious song here is the last, your love will set you free. and it’s the one that lifts a little bit of that weight off my chest.