Caribou

Caribou's Start Breaking My Heart is closer to Elliott Smith than Coldcut, and about as stable as a bull in a china shop full of unheard copies of Kid A, but this is the sort of production that niftily stands for modern solo melancholiacs with more to offer than a co-option of Warp back catalogs and egregious MOR. Responsibility for Start goes to Toronto's Dan Snaith, a twenty-something musician whose work is both technical enough for scholastic jazz ears and organic enough for acoustic traditionalists. Beats spring about but don't go all clickety-spangly. Homespun tunes swoon and sway but never whine. The work here is so good that you no longer eternally have to connect the words "classically trained" with pompous incompetence. [Originally released in 2001, Start Breaking My Heart was subsequently re-released after legal action from Handsome Dick Manitoba forced Snaith to change his billing from Manitoba to Caribou.] ~ Dean Carlson, All Music Guide