Daniel Victor Snaith is a Canadian composer, musician, and recording artist. He has released 11 studio albums since 2000 and has recorded and performed under the stage names Caribou, Manitoba, and Daphni.
Snaith’s first release was an EP entitled, People Eating Fruit, in 2000 under the artist name Manitoba. This was followed by his debut album, Start Breaking My Heart, in 2001. His second album, Up In Flames, inspired by 1960s psychedelia and 1990s shoegaze was released in 2003. This album was accompanied by a tour where Snaith, who had previously performed live as a solo electronic act, performed with a live band.
In 2004, after being threatened with a lawsuit by Richard ‘Handsome Dick’ Manitoba, Snaith changed his performance name to Caribou. Snaith’s previous full-length albums were then re- released under the new moniker. His first new album to be released under the new name was 2005’s The Milk of Human Kindness. His albums to this point were released on The Leaf Label.
In 2007, Snaith signed to Merge Records in North and South America and City Slang in the rest of the world and released the album, Andorra. This was followed by Swim in 2010, which saw his sound turned towards the dancefloor. The album, Our Love, followed in 2014. It was Snaith’s most commercially successful album to date – peaking at number 8 on the UK album charts and 46 in the US Top 200 Billboard Album Charts. This was followed in February 2020, by the Caribou album, Suddenly and most recently in October 2024, Snaith released his most recent Caribou album, Honey.
When performing concerts as Caribou, Snaith plays with a live band. Currently, the live band consists of Snaith, Ryan Smith, Brad Weber, and John Schmersal and includes two drum kits on stage alongside bass, guitar and various electronic instruments. Caribou have toured worldwide since the early 2003 and performed at festivals including Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound, Field Day, Bonnaroo, All Points East, Reading and Leeds, Parklife, Osheaga, amongst many others. In 2012, Caribou supported Radiohead globally on their ‘King of Limbs’ tour.
In 2011, looking for an outlet for more dancefloor influenced output, began releasing music under the name Daphni. He has released 3 studio albums under this alias – Jiaolong (2012), Joli Mai (2017) and Cherry (2022) on his own record label, Jiaolong. When appearing as Daphni, Snaith performs as a DJ, having played repeatedly at clubs, including Panorama Bar, Printworks, Fabric, Plastic People, Space Ibiza, Trouw, Nitsa, Nowadays, and festivals, including Coachella, Glastonbury, Dekmantel, Primavera Sound, Field Day, Melt, Rainbow Disco Club Junction 2, amongst many others.
