Titles don’t come way more self-explanatory than “Unhappy Piano Home,” which might double because the style tag for the brand new loosie from Daphni, the dance alter-ego of Caribou’s Dan Snaith. The London-based musician crafted the music as fodder for his DJ units final 12 months, transforming parts from Cherry’s melancholy “Cloudy” into much more skeletal kind; as soon as Ben UFO and different DJ associates began enjoying the unreleased music in membership units and on radio reveals, Snaith’s working title for the observe turned official.
However hey, reality in promoting: It’s home music, it’s bought pianos, and, most necessary of all, it’s unhappy. Not downer, boo-hoo, maudlin unhappy, however precisely the form of bittersweet that may provide a dancefloor with a frisson of wistfulness at precisely the proper second. The observe’s success lies in its cautious stability of contrasting energies. The crazy drum groove is tough and bumptious, boasting the form of tuned toms and skippy hi-hats that, in one other context, would possibly present the inspiration for a celebratory anthem or a ribald booty-shaker. However Snaith tempers the skipping groove with doleful hiccups of cut-up vocals; then, drizzling on a wobbly jazz-piano pattern, he cinches the heartstrings tight. For the following 5 minutes (seven within the prolonged model), that’s just about all of the music does, mulling over its handful of rigorously chosen parts with the ruminative calm of somebody absentmindedly tracing circles across the rim of their glass, questioning whether or not to maintain crying into their cup or simply hit the rattling flooring already.
