Caribou – Koko, London 08/10/14

Throngs of people already flood the balconies and the stairwells are stacked. This is quite a crowd and a cacophany of hustle bustle that is stemmed when Caribou and his backing band appear, though the awe-filled silence is proved a little premature as Dan Snaith first simply tinkers with his equipment, mesmerising in his nonchalance. The crowd is held in sustained suspense.

Then the tick tock of a snare and the echoed vocal of his recent album’s title track “Our Love” begins and the oscillating layers begin to build. Delicate in its loop progression, teasing with its wavering synths yet straight up with its simple keys, it has the hallmarks of classic deep house. “Silver” follows, sweet psychedelia that is the musical equivalent of drifting through a rose-tinted cloud on a helium filled balloon.

Snaith has been widely reported as calling his fifth album "mind-numbingly simple". However, this has to be taken with a pinch of salt coming from someone with a doctorate in mathematics. Snaith also finds arithmetic geometry and elliptic cohomology simple (look it up in on wikipedia - it a dyslexic's worst nightmare).

Rather more fitting is his description of the creative process between himself and fellow Canadian Owen Pallett as "kind of like chess" – the thinking man's game of tactical decisions and strategic moves. In fact, Caribou's output is so meticulously orchestrated, they have thought to bury Penderecki (a composer, thanks again Wikipedia) and Baroque string "treats" sparingly like hidden treasure. The real beauty of it all is how the final essence of what they produce sounds so simple and is so easy to absorb.

Tonight, Caribou seamlessly sweeps through his grandiose electronica, retaining a constant poised perfection. He is focussed, cool as a cucumber, with just a hint of an occasional smile. In the ostentatious venue, he is quite the humble performer.

Already, I am lamenting that it is a week night. This is a performance you want to get lost in. A few of the crowd seem to have already lost themselves, and the masses throb with electro-fuelled party shapes. "He's playing again soon on a Saturday" I assure myself, feeling a little too old for all this mid-week disco dancing.

For “Second Chance”, guest vocalist and support act, Jessy Lanza is invited onto the stage. Whereas the band wear all white, Jessy is in a gothic black Victoriana dress. Combined with a side pony, it’s a starling ensemble, but her voice more than makes up. She frolics above the distorted bass melodies in a register few of us could even reach, with a dollop of subtle soft smokiness. It's stunning, it really is. Though as she leaves the stage there is the sense of Caribou picking up where he left off, yet with our enraptured trance having been momentarily broken.

By the time the iconic bleating riff of “Odessa” begins, the crowd are once again hyped and it’s greeted with a roar. Its stripped Balearic beats have a sinister undertone but a dizzying euphoria, and with ethereal falsetto plus erratic percussion that suggests a clear out of his Dad's garage, it shouldn't make sense. But it does. This song is a triumph. As is Snaith, who as well as vocals takes centre stage to play a tiny recorder, to the crowd's raised eyebrow delight.

Despite having pretty much burned the album into my cochlea during the few days between its release and the gig, it is still these mellow uplifting classics that I am most wanting to hear. So when Caribou walk from the stage just a couple of tracks later, I know there is only one song that will be a fitting encore finale.

Of course, it's then no surprise when the stage is bathed in amber, just like a... with beams of orange lasers just like a… that bath us in a warm glow just like a…

Suddenly the vocal fractures around the room dissolving into trickling beats and bubbling synth patterns. They play an extended version of “Sun” that could go on forever, a twisting kaleidoscope of a track that leaves us immersed in its spiralling patterns.

But end it does, and suddenly it is very much a Wednesday and my bike awaits out in the cold. Though as we queue for the stairs, we start to plan the upcoming all-nighter.