Odessa

Dan Snaith is a Canadian electronic musician who records under the name of Caribou. This is the opening track and first single from his 2010 album, Swim, the follow-up to his 2008 Polaris Music Prize record, Andorra.

A few years prior to the recording of the album, Snaith's wife gave him swimming lessons as a Christmas present, prompting him to take it up as a new hobby. This partially led to the eventual ideology behind Swim, which is awash with aquatic sonics. Snaith told Chart Attack that the lessons blended into his growing fixation with fluidity in music and the ability to achieve that with his army of electronic instruments. He explained: "I wanted to make dance music where all the elements would sound like water and have these waves that flow around in the mix. When I was making Andorra, I was listening to a lot of music by [producer] James Holden. His music would flow and disintegrate unexpectedly; it breathes very well."

The last track of Andorra, "Niobe," was Snaith's way of attempting to imitate Holden and figure out his techniques. He explained that Swim expands on that track and moves forward with flowing water imagery and sonic experimentation. Said Snaith: "I'm sure of almost everyone who listens to this album, the first thing that will strike them will be how different it is from Andorra, but in a strange sense it is kind of a continuation."