Caribou - Start Breaking My Heart

Before he was Caribou, Dan Snaith was Manitoba, and Start Breaking My Heart is where his playful, glowing electronic pop first took shape.

Released in 2001, the debut was written and produced by Snaith alone while he was still a student, and it quickly drew comparisons with Boards of Canada and Four Tet. A few years later he changed his recording name to Caribou, and the album has carried that name ever since. Snaith later turned to the shimmering dance records that made him a festival headliner, but the melodic instincts were there from the start.

The sound is warm and handmade, all crunchy beats, wobbling keyboards and toy-box melodies that feel recorded on a sunny afternoon. Dundas, Ontario opens with a hazy nod to his hometown, People Eating Fruit was the first single, and Paul's Birthday stretches into the record's longest daydream. Happy Ending, fittingly, has the last word.

It is quieter and more intimate than what came later, closer to a sketchbook than a statement, and that is exactly its appeal. Each sound seems placed by hand, with tiny melodic surprises tucked into the corners.

An origin story worth owning on vinyl, and a lovely, sunlit listen in its own right for anyone who has fallen for Caribou's later records.