CARIBOU - Start Breaking My Heart CARIBOU

Before he was Caribou, Dan Snaith was a 20-something student in a "crappy" Toronto bedroom, recording music on a beat-up computer that used to strain under the weight of digital recording.

Start Breaking My Heart was Snaith's 2001 debut, originally released under the name Manitoba. Twenty-five years on, it still sounds like an artist finding his voice in real time — rainbow melody, hopscotch percussion, and playground laughter stitched into warm, tactile electronic pop.

Reflecting on the record, Snaith said it was the first time something clicked — he'd been making music since his early teens, but this was when he first felt he understood what he wanted his tracks to be. That moment coincided with the chance encounter that changed everything: he met Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) at a UK festival, who helped Dan get this album released — the start of a career that has spanned a quarter century and many albums since.