搬運(yùn)自：網(wǎng)易云音樂專欄【Music Online Zine Courier】（在原文基礎(chǔ)上添加了英語(yǔ)原文與排版調(diào)整）

翻譯：豆目豆科

Dan Snaith’s latest is as sly and layered as ever, but he finds ways to be more direct with his songwriting. There are no bum notes, no wasted motions, no corners of the audio spectrum left untouched.?

Dan Snaith 的最新作品一如既往地狡猾千面，同時(shí)他找到了更為直接地創(chuàng)作途徑。沒有零散流浪的音符、沒有多余的動(dòng)作、沒有難以觸及的頻譜狹縫。

Over the past decade, Caribou has been whittling down his music. Dan Snaith’s songs were once a constant swirl of brightly colored baubles, as pleasingly jumbled as the view through a kaleidoscope. With 2010’s Swim, the muddle began coming into focus. The melodies were brighter, the beats more direct. Things got sharper still on 2014’s Our Love, which filtered the pleasures and anxieties of domesticity through the prism of house music at its most ebullient. That simple title spoke to Snaith’s growing interest in getting at the essence of things. The emotions he was grappling with were complicated—in interviews, he spoke eloquently about the trials of marriage and fatherhood—but he had a way of framing messy feelings in bold strokes. The album’s biggest song, “Can’t Do Without You,” featured few lyrics save its titular refrain, repeated over and over, turning its ambiguous double negative into a mantra-like affirmation.

在過(guò)去的十年間，Caribou 一直在精簡(jiǎn)他的音樂。Dan Snaith 的歌曲曾經(jīng)是一個(gè)個(gè)不斷旋轉(zhuǎn)、色彩繽紛的小玩意兒，就像透過(guò)萬(wàn)花筒所看到的那令人愉悅的混沌景象。隨著2010年《Swim》的發(fā)行，這些混沌漸漸匯集——旋律愈加明亮、節(jié)拍更加直接。在2014年的《Our Love》中，事物變得愈加尖銳，它們穿透最熱情洋溢的 House Music 棱鏡，分離過(guò)濾出家庭生活中快樂與焦慮并存之態(tài)。這一簡(jiǎn)單的標(biāo)題便說(shuō)明了 Snaith 愈加衷于觸及事物本質(zhì)。他正努力應(yīng)對(duì)的情感是復(fù)雜的——在采訪中，他滔滔不絕地講述了婚姻和身為人父的艱辛——但他仍掌握有一法門，用大膽的筆觸重構(gòu)收束混亂的情緒。這張專輯中最熱門的歌曲 “Can't Do Without You” 除了標(biāo)題外便不再有其他歌詞，一遍又一遍地重復(fù)下，將其模糊的雙重否定句式化為咒語(yǔ)般深入人心的決心之語(yǔ)。

Suddenly is more stylistically varied than Our Love or Swim, but it’s also the most direct that Snaith has sounded. Many of its standout songs are just two or three minutes long, perfect models of pop economy. The anthems are punchier: The dusty boom-bap of “Home” is the platonic ideal of a rare-groove edit, “Never Come Back” the epitome of a piano-house barnstormer. There’s nothing generic about even his most exacting genre studies: A Caribou song will always sound first and foremost like a Caribou song, thanks in part to Snaith’s distinctive falsetto, which graces every song here. There are no bum notes, no wasted motions, no corners of the audio spectrum left untouched.

《Suddenly》在風(fēng)格上比《Our Love》或《Swim》更加多樣，但同時(shí)它也是 Snaith 聽感上最為直白的作品。它中許多熱門歌曲僅僅時(shí)長(zhǎng)兩三分鐘，是流行音樂市場(chǎng)下的完美典范。歌曲更富震撼力：“Home” 那充滿塵世感的轟鳴聲將是極為罕見的完美之筆，而 “Never Come Back” 則是鋼琴屋酒吧老板的絕妙剪影。即使是他最為嚴(yán)格的流派研究也并無(wú)通用之處：Caribou 的歌曲之所以聽起來(lái)首先知曉是 Caribou 所為，這部分要?dú)w功于 Snaith 獨(dú)特的假聲，他的假聲在這張專輯的每一首歌曲中均有體現(xiàn)。這里不再有零散流浪的音符、不再有多余的動(dòng)作、不再有難以觸及的頻譜狹縫。

Snaith’s beat-making has gotten more adventurous, too. He flits between rock, trap, UK garage, disco, and more, sometimes touching on two or three styles in the course of a single song. His drums are sharp and every hi-hat and cowbell is rendered in crisp hi-def and seems to hover in mid-air, like a 3D image. In this heady precision, Suddenly can be an almost dizzying listen. Caribou’s music has never leaped from the speakers quite the way it does here.

Snaith 的鼓點(diǎn)制作也變得愈加冒險(xiǎn)。他在 Rock、trap、UK Garage 以及 Disco 等等音樂流派之間游走，甚至有時(shí)會(huì)在一首歌曲中運(yùn)用兩三種風(fēng)格。他的鼓聲尖銳而清晰，每一個(gè) hi-hat 和牛鈴聲都是高清渲染，于半空中全方位旋轉(zhuǎn)呈現(xiàn)，好似一個(gè)3D圖像一般栩栩如生。在這種令人陶醉的精確呈現(xiàn)中，《Suddenly》可以給人以一種幾乎令人暈厥的聽感，Caribou 的音樂從未如此這般將要從揚(yáng)聲器中一躍而出，直逼耳廓。

That outward clarity masks the growth in Caribou’s songwriting. Snaith has rarely been a strictly autobiographical lyricist, but not all of Our Love’s tales were as elegant as “Can’t Do Without You”. He has said that he’s the kind of person who might not know the lyrics to his favorite song, and on Our Love, you could tell. The lyrics felt more like placeholders, cue points where listeners might project their own more detailed experiences. Suddenly follows a period of turmoil in his extended family—a string of death, divorce, and other assorted shrapnel that falls within the blast radius of middle age—and, coincidentally or no, his writing has improved greatly. The stories he’s telling feel more substantial, as does his ability to assume the voices of a wider cast of characters. He still has a hard time resisting the pull of an easy couplet; the album is peppered with rhymes like “know” and “grow,” “in the past” and “here to last.” But he tends to use his voice as just another source of tone color. It is, truly, a lovely instrument, as limpid and azure as the photograph of water on the album’s cover.

這種外在的清明卻掩蓋了 Caribou 在歌曲創(chuàng)作上的成長(zhǎng)。Snaith 很少作為一個(gè)嚴(yán)格意義上的自傳體詞作家，但同時(shí)并非所有《Our Love》中的故事都同 “Can't Do Without You”一般優(yōu)雅。他曾說(shuō)過(guò)，他是那種甚至不知道自己最喜歡歌曲歌詞的人，這一點(diǎn)在《Our Love》中可見一斑。歌詞在她的作品中更像是定位點(diǎn)，是聽眾得以投射自身經(jīng)歷的提示條。突然間（Suddenly），他美好的家庭生活出現(xiàn)一段動(dòng)蕩期——一連串的生離死別以及其他在“中年爆炸半徑內(nèi)的無(wú)數(shù)彈片”——無(wú)論是不是巧合，他的創(chuàng)作也隨之發(fā)生巨大的改變——他所講述的故事愈加充實(shí)，他為更多人物代言的能力也愈發(fā)純青。他仍然難以抗拒一些簡(jiǎn)單對(duì)仗的吸引力；這張專輯充斥了諸如 “Know” 之于 “Grow”、“in the past” 之于 “here to last” 這樣的韻文。但他傾向于把他的聲音作為另一器樂音的來(lái)源，它確為一個(gè)可愛的工具，就像專輯封面中所呈現(xiàn)的水波圖像一樣清澈湛藍(lán)。

Snaith’s principal strength remains his skill as a musician and producer. He’s got hooks for days, and you could heat a single-family home by the warmth of his chord progressions. Virtually every song has some little detail that makes you lean in closer. There’s a marvelous moment in the opening “Sister,” in which the synthesizer detunes by just a few cents, almost imperceptibly, just enough to change the temperature in the room. “Like I Loved You” features a rippling jazz-guitar solo from Colin Fisher, the album’s only guest musician, that rolls like marbles on the deck of a boat.

Snaith 的主要優(yōu)勢(shì)仍然是他同時(shí)作為音樂家和制作人所掌握的精湛技能。他早已能熟練繪出歌曲之中的高亮一筆，你甚至可以用他溫馨的和弦進(jìn)程來(lái)加熱你一人獨(dú)處時(shí)的冷清屋舍；也幾乎每首歌都有些引人入勝的小細(xì)節(jié)。在開篇的 “Sister” 中，有一奇妙時(shí)刻，合成器僅僅略微改變分寸，幾乎難以察覺，卻足以改變房間的溫度?！癓ike I Loved You” 中，專輯中唯一的客座音樂家 Colin Fisher 的爵士吉他獨(dú)奏波瀾起伏，好似甲板上滾動(dòng)往復(fù)的彈珠。

In “Sunny’s Time,” tape-warp effects give the song’s central piano melody the texture of shirred silk, while a gruff hip-hop sample is chopped to ribbons and filtered in a way that accentuates the grain of the rapper’s voice, which is rendered all but unintelligible. It’s a fresh, surprising choice: Producers have been cribbing funk breaks like the one Snaith grabs for “Home” for decades. But by zeroing in on that gravelly vocal texture, “Sunny’s Time” gives Suddenly the feel of being in conversation with mainstream popular music—or eavesdropping on it, anyway.

在 “Sunny's Time” 中，磁帶卷曲的音效使歌曲中夾雜的鋼琴的旋律極具絲綢般柔順的質(zhì)感；而粗獷的 Hip-Hop 采樣被分割成縷縷絲條，并以一種突出說(shuō)唱者聲音紋理的方式進(jìn)行精濾，而徹底使之聲音變得琢磨不透。這不可謂不是一個(gè)新鮮、令人驚異的選擇：近幾十年來(lái)，許多制作人都選擇去仿制 Snaith 為 “Home” 所創(chuàng)作的那種放克音樂。但是，通過(guò)定位這種沙啞的人聲質(zhì)地，“Sunny's Time” 為《Suddenly》帶來(lái)一種與主流流行音樂對(duì)話的錯(cuò)覺——或者說(shuō)是在窺視它。

Listen through enough times, and you may think you hear more songs than are listed on the sleeve. Time and again, songs feint left in their final minute or two. “New Jade,” a kind of psychedelic, maximalist R&B, suddenly flips into a gothic snippet of synth and flanged guitar, like something off the Cure’s 1980 album Seventeen Seconds. The chunky soul of “Home” gives way to fingerpicked folk guitar. And “Lime,” a jazzy house tune in the vein of Theo Parrish, abruptly stops and cuts to a much slower sample of Black Soul’s “The Sphynx,” a dirge-like meditation from 1975. This collage-like construction most likely reflects the way the record came together: Snaith has said that in the five years since Our Love, he amassed an archive of 900 loops and sketches, the products of his daily studio practice. The stragglers that seem to have snuck in here, under cover of the completed songs, are a big part of the record’s charm: They enliven the mood and keep things moving.

在反復(fù)欣賞過(guò)數(shù)遍而飽腹后，你可能會(huì)錯(cuò)認(rèn)為你聽到了遠(yuǎn)比唱片封面所羅列的多得多的歌曲。歌曲一次又一次的在最后一兩分鐘里佯裝離開又再度顯現(xiàn)。“New Jade” 這一原本迷幻，極端主義的 R&B，突然轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楦缣厥降暮铣善骱丸傔吋衅拖?the Cure 樂隊(duì)1980年的專輯《Seventeen Seconds》里的曲目。“Home” 厚重的靈魂樂元素讓位給指彈民謠吉他音；而 “Lime”，一首與 Theo Parrish 相似的爵士樂曲，則會(huì)突然暫停切入 Black Soul “The Sphynx” 這首1975年充斥著哀傷情調(diào)的冥想曲放慢數(shù)倍后的采樣片段。 這種拼貼式的樂曲結(jié)構(gòu)很可能反映了唱片的制作過(guò)程：Snaith 說(shuō)，在《Our Love》之后的五年間，他積累了近千個(gè)片段和草樣，這些都是他日常錄音室練習(xí)的產(chǎn)物。在已完成的歌曲的遮掩下，這些零散其中的東西便是這張唱片的魅力所在——它們活躍了平淡的音軌，使事物愈加開闊、無(wú)盡延伸。

All these trap doors sometimes give the impression that there’s another album hiding in the shadows of Suddenly, like those vinyl records that have a secret track carved between the grooves of another song. It can be tempting to wonder what that hypothetical album might have sounded like, and where Snaith might have wandered had he given free rein to his experimental instincts. The mood throughout is so sweet, the harmonies so reassuringly consonant, that I occasionally long for a little more discord. In paring back, it sometimes feels like Snaith is holding back; I miss the occasional overload of Swim, where Caribou’s newfound discipline gave way to his psychedelic second nature, and it felt as if the tape couldn’t take all the input that he was throwing at it.

所有這些暗道、陷阱都給人以一種“在《Suddenly》的暗影之中隱藏著另一張專輯——就像在某首歌曲的音軌凹槽之間刻有秘密音樂的黑膠唱片”的感覺。我們顯然很想知曉那張遐想專輯的真正模樣，如果 Snaith 能夠自如地發(fā)揮他的實(shí)驗(yàn)本能，他又可能會(huì)飄蕩到何處。整張專輯的情緒是如此的甜美，和聲又有著如此令人安心的和諧，以至于我偶爾還會(huì)渴望多一點(diǎn)不和諧。在精簡(jiǎn)的過(guò)程中，有時(shí)感覺 Snaith 在忍氣吞聲；我懷念《Swim》偶爾的要素過(guò)載，Caribou 新發(fā)掘的鐵律讓位于他那迷幻的第二天性，感覺好像磁帶將無(wú)法承受他的全套輸入。

Suddenly, in contrast, is almost all business—with a few salient exceptions, the most moving of which comes right at the end. Album closer “Cloud Song” begins as a meditation for voice and? but it builds and builds—layers accruing, waveforms morphing, harmonies slipping out of tune. “I’m broken, so tired of crying/Just hold me close to you,” he sings, as a flood of frequencies gushes forth from his electronics. In this brief moment, all the control of the previous 40-odd minutes is washed away. Witnessing Snaith in full command of his talents is gratifying. But this moment where it all threatens to fall apart is what makes his music feel not just relatable but consequential.

相比之下，《Suddenly》幾乎所有的業(yè)務(wù)層——除了一些明顯的例外，最感人至深的是專輯的尾聲 “Cloud Song” 開篇是作為聲音和無(wú)伴合成器的冥想曲，但它同時(shí)富于變化不斷堆疊發(fā)展——層層累積，波形扭曲、和聲走調(diào)?！癐’m broken, so tired of crying/Just hold me close to you”他這樣唱道，與此同時(shí)頻率洪流從他的電子設(shè)備中噴涌而出。在這短暫的數(shù)秒間，先前40多分鐘的壓抑被盡數(shù)沖毀，能目睹 Snaith 完全掌控自己才華是令人欣慰的。正是在這個(gè)一切都有可能分崩離析的危險(xiǎn)時(shí)刻，他的音樂才讓人覺得不僅有共鳴，而且足以載入史冊(cè)。