Daphni is the dance-oriented project of Canadian musician
Daniel Snaith, best known under his
Caribou moniker.
Snaith hoped to recapture the magic and sense of discovery that electronic dance music had before it exploded into the mainstream, and the project finds the artist working with more flexibility and spontaneity, creating songs in the moment rather than through the meticulous processes that characterize his other work. After dipping his toes in the water with remixes for
Cortney Tidwell and
Hot Chip,
Snaith made his full-length
Daphni debut on Merge with the 2012 album
Jiaolong.
Snaith returned to
Caribou with 2014's acclaimed
Our Love, but continued to work as
Daphni, releasing the "Vikram" single in 2015.
Daphni also contributed the
Owen Pallett collaboration "Julia" to 2017's Lives Through Magic, a benefit album for victims of the deadly 2016 fire at the Oakland, California warehouse venue Ghost Ship. That July,
Daphni issued Fabriclive 93, a mix dominated by original tracks created for the album.
Daphni's second album,
Joli Mai, which featured the full versions of those tracks, as well as the previously unreleased "Vulture," arrived that October. Returning in 2019, he issued the five-song Sizzling EP, which included two remixes of Paradise's 1981 disco hit "Sizzling" and three new tracks. ~ Gregory Heaney