Photo: Lucy Bridger
Over the past ten years, Canadian born and London-based Dan Snaith's Caribou have built a solid reputation for delivering a pulsating live show of prog-trance and thrillingly catchy experimental electro-pop. The feverish excitement at the venue however, reflects not only the live commodity but the impact the creatively robust 2014 album Our Love - which surely benefited from a tour they did with Radiohead and work with Four Tet beforehand.
The response is humbling for Snaith, who emerges from out of the obscurity of the shadows, as the whole band appear as silhouettes within a psychedelic lightshow to say: "I never thought we would play here!"
Modest as they may be, Caribou are pioneers of live electronic music and a huge influence and reference for other artists looking to go from DJ to live spectacle, so their appearance is more than justified.
Part of the honour of playing at Brixton Academy is for bands to play through the world-beating soundsystem. Their analogue synth, two live drums, bass and guitar are treated with a dizzying array of effects and processors and are given total justice, and they play with pin-point precision. They're barely pausing to take a breath. As such, this fluid set turns the audience into a rave scene that look much more like 3am than 9pm. It's intoxicating to be surrounded by such appreciation.
It's this euphoric reaction to this extraordinarily well-executed live dance music that suggests we could be seeing Caribou ushered to the top of many festival headline slots in time to come. It may have been ten years since they released their first album, but it feels like Caribou's moment is now. Miss them at your peril.
