Unexpected collaborations have become the gimmick of choice in recent years. This gave us fever dreams like Otto Waalkes and Ski Aggu – or Helene Fischer and Shirin David. But no one really expected this feature from November: Daphni and Caribou. Especially because both artist personas have their home in a single person: Dan Snaith. But his artistic identities are often very distant from each other, which is why it made sense for him to declare the track “Waiting So Long” as a feature of the two projects, where the singer and performer Caribou delivers vocals to the euphoric disco track of his club music alter ego Daphni, while you can hear cheerful clubbers in the background.
BUTTERFLY, Snaith’s fifth album as Daphni, also celebrates the happiness that can only be found on a dance floor – regardless of whether it is in a club or in your own living room. It starts with the ironically titled opener “Sad Piano House”, where if you listen closely you think you can hear ducks quacking, and it doesn’t end there when you take off into space with the closing track “Eleven” (which is, however, the sixteenth track on the album).
Yes, with Daphni and Caribou Snaith serves completely different sound worlds – but in both he knows how to combine longing, euphoria and melancholy into an irresistible whole like no other musician. Out of the box, one of the best dance albums of the year, at least.
This review appears in Musikexpress 3/2026.
