CARIBOU ON STAGE AND BEHIND THE SCENES
It's an important distinction for me
that the records are "me at home"
that they're a solo thing essentially.
But the live show is really equally all of us.
The set we always envisioned being able to do
we're finally able to do.
And having this complex crazy web of things
that are connected to one brain, but a totally reliable brain.
We can depend on Live every single night.
THE SET-UP
I have a laptop that runs Ableton Live.
I have a sound card next to it
with six outputs.
So we output stereo tracks from the laptop,
and stereo sends from Dans and Ryans keyboards.
So they're using instruments within Live,
and then they're routing them back to a sampler
that they also use for effects.
Some squizzles and squeaks and stuff come off of that.
While Live is the central instrument in our set,
we do have a few things like those.
And John and I have stand alone drum machines that we use as well.
The keyboards do a variety of things:
act as a keyboard, controlling a VST Synthesizer,
but the buttons on the keyboard
can also start a different part of the song,
or mute a sound and bring it back in.
This set up, with our interconnectedness on stage,
and the technology kind of supporting us,
has made us more able to improvise,
to move into a completely different section of the song,
to completely rework things.
"Swim" was the first time I recognised that I was doing things
that I wouldn't have done without the technology I was using,
specifically with Live, a lot of the things.
Because the idea of the album was to get this fluid, liquid sounding music.
Being able to take every parameter
and vary it and modulate it by hand all the time.
You get that sensation of not just the instruments being played live,
but the mix being played live as well.
At times Dan will fire off a different keyboard sequence that plays itself,
and he'll just control cut off, release, delays and reverbs and so on.
I have a foot pedal next to me.
I'm able to bring in loops and other sounds in and out.
So we're all contributing to the overall construction of the song.
At the very end, I can shut everything off,
and we can come to an abrupt stop.
It's been eight years or so that we've been touring,
and our live shows have been developing.
I'm so happy with the way it is now and I'm so excited about it,
Going onwards to the next album,
I'm really excited about trying out
the things that we can try out next time.
I can't imagine doing it any other way.
It's become an equally important part as the recordings, I guess.