Titles don’t come much more self-explanatory than “Sad Piano House,” which could double as the genre tag for the new loosie from Daphni, the dance alter-ego of Caribou’s Dan Snaith. The London-based musician crafted the song as fodder for his DJ sets last year, reworking elements from Cherry’s melancholy “Cloudy” into even more skeletal form; once Ben UFO and other DJ friends started playing the unreleased song in club sets and on radio shows, Snaith’s working title for the track became official.
But hey, truth in advertising: It’s house music, it’s got pianos, and, most important of all, it’s sad. Not downer, boo-hoo, maudlin sad, but exactly the kind of bittersweet that can supply a dancefloor with a frisson of wistfulness at exactly the right moment. The track’s success lies in its careful balance of contrasting energies. The loopy drum groove is rough and bumptious, boasting the kind of tuned toms and skippy hi-hats that, in another context, might provide the foundation for a celebratory anthem or a ribald booty-shaker. But Snaith tempers the skipping groove with doleful hiccups of cut-up vocals; then, drizzling on a wobbly jazz-piano sample, he cinches the heartstrings tight. For the next five minutes (seven in the extended version), that’s pretty much all the song does, mulling over its handful of carefully chosen elements with the ruminative calm of someone absentmindedly tracing circles around the rim of their glass, wondering whether to keep crying into their cup or just hit the damn floor already.
