by RAF KATIGBAK

For a while, Dan Snaith's greatest fear was being forgotten. "I thought, I'm going to change my name just as things are going well and nobody's going to hear about it, or care," says Snaith. Last year, just as the artist formerly known as Manitoba was riding high, touring the world on the strength of his swirling, psychedelic, electronic-shoegazer masterpiece Up in Flames, he was suddenly slapped with a copyright infringement suit by the other Manitoba - Dictators frontman Handsome Dick (who turned out to be more of the latter than former).

Despite having a solid case, Snaith was faced with a legal battle that promised to suck every resource he had. So he did what any self-respecting Canadian would do. He changed his name to Caribou and got busy making his best fucking album to date.

Mirror: How hard was it to bounce back after dealing with such a dick?

Dan Snaith: I had to think, did I really want to be in court with this guy for a year, wasting massive amounts of resources, including time and energy? After I made the decision, it was easy to put this guy in my past and just get on with what I love doing. It was just like, screw this guy! Who the fuck cares, I'll make a really good album and get on with things.

M: And so you have. The Milk of Human Kindness is awesome. It still references the weirder side of rock, but less the psychedelic West Coast side and more the driving, Krautrock end, like Neu and Can.

DS: That sound came from playing live so much. I wanted to be in a band that was playing that shit. I also went to see Lightning Bolt, and I was like, yeah! I want to make that kind of music - even though the album is not like that at all, I wanted to have some tracks that sounded like we were playing some super, super heavy shit alongside the more melodic stuff.

M: You've played in bear masks, named yourself Caribou and have track titles like "Bees," "Lord Leopard" and "Barnowl." What's up with you and animals?

DS: In some ways I just like the nomenclature of these things. They're just weird words that people have gotten used to. Also I like that it's so the opposite of rock 'n' roll song titles, titles that try and catch some trend, like, "Look, I'm cool, I called my song something with a bunch of drugs or chicks in the title." It's just the least trendy shit.

M: If you could be any animal, which one would you be?

DS: My favourite animal that I've ever seen is the Tasmanian devil. Obviously, the guy who drew that cartoon was quite rightly obsessed with them. They're weird little neurotic beasts. The one I saw had this sort of big, naked rat tail coming out of this ugly-as-fuck rodent. The whole time I was watching it, it was doing these tight figure-eights, like it couldn't figure out what to do with itself. It actually had worn down this patch on a rock from where it was doing figure-eights for no reason. It was like it was on speed or something. I don't exactly know why I'd like to be one of these.

With Junior Boys and Russian Futurists
at la Sala Rossa on Friday, April 29, 9 p.m., $14

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