Caribou & Factory Floor Live in London 22/02/11

Well I had been waiting a long time to catch Caribou after their stunning album 'Swim' came out, which dominated my listening habits for the 2nd half of 2010. I saw Caribou play at Field Day in Victoria Park last summer on a very hot day in August and quite frankly was left itching to see them in a dark, intimate venue - fast forward to a damp and cold February Tuesday evening in West London's Shepherd's Bush Empire and pretty much all the ingredients are in place.

I am not going to lie when I say I was up for this gig, so early doors and down the front was the order of the day.

Main support for Caribou came in the form of London 3 piece Factory Floor - who, from the outset made no apologies for their utterly relentless, punishingly loud, loop driven noise techno. Their sound is not a million miles away from what would be produced if Joy Division, Crystal Castles and LCD Soundsystem met in a dark alley and had fist fight. Each track is filled with pounding drum loops, fuzz filled guitar distortion and oscillating, twisted synth loops.

There is nothing warm about this band and they know it.

Each track felt like it was 15 minutes long and in a club at 2am would have sounded amazing, here though at 8pm on a slowly filling Empire it wasn't right. I have to say I enjoyed them and they were a good warm up, I just wish their tracks went somewhere -instead their persistent minimal beats were the main driving force.

Judge for yourself - but it is clear that this band loves noise and aggressive, cold noise at that.

Lying by Factory Floor


So the main event at 9.30 sharp and Daniel Victor Snaith and the rest of the Caribou band walk on stage dressed in unassuming white jeans and T-Shirts. Snaith removes his shoes, he clearly means business and within seconds they launch into 'Leave House'.

Caribou are now on their last leg of touring 'Swim' and its clear the result of all that touring has meant they are incredibly tight, rehearsed and totally immersed in playing live. 'Swim' was voted the number 1 album of 2010 by Rough Trade and its exciting to hear these tracks being played live. The crowd- mostly made up of East London hipsters who had made the trip over London from Shoreditch were in awe. The band all play to each other and their set up means they can all see each other, all of the time.

 Caribou

Other highlights from the set included 'Bowls', 'Kaili' and 'Odessa'. Its fair to say that the tripped out 'Yeti' & 'Melody Day' were a slight psychedelic departure from the sounds of 'Swim' which the majority of this crowd seem to know very well.

The set was just fantastic and full of all the tracks the crowd wanted... Live, this band are in their element and the album 'Swim' deserved every bit of praise that was thrown its way. Caribou returned to the stage to play a extended version of the frankly awesome 'Sun' - yes I just used the 'A' word but in the right context here!

If you haven't discovered 'Swim' - spend some time lapping it up here.

Just superb...end of.




Swim by Caribouband


Also worth a mention here is Gold Panda's Remix of Jamelia

Jamelia (Gold Panda Remix) by Caribouband



Caribou go onto Amsterdam, Copenhegen and Snaith plays several DJ gigs before hitting Tokyo in the spring.

Get more here

-Andy in London