Me Me Me In The Picture

tUnE-yArDs “Sunlight”

I entirely ignored tUnE-yArDs for the better part of this year entirely because I don’t like the name, and every time I saw it in print in promo emails et al I figured it was just another boring band of dudes. This is not the case. tUnE-yArDs is the work of one woman, Merrill Garbus, and her music is so distinct and atypical that I fumble when I try to think of how to describe her in terms of genre.

The songs on her debut album BiRd-BrAiNs are recorded on somewhat crappy equipment as if they were field recordings, but there is a great deal of manipulation in the production, yielding stark contrasts in fidelity and sound level within the pieces. For example, a guitar or ukulele part may be recorded with a crisp, clean tone, but percussion will get blown out and clipped before switching to a more typical sound while shifting placement in the mix. It sounds primitive but it’s an incredibly deliberate and considered work, and the variety of textures floating throughout the album lends a dynamic subtext and the feeling of shifting physical planes. More than any other album in 2009 aside from perhaps Micachu’s Jewellery, BiRd-BrAiNs sounds like something you could reach out and touch, even if the physical sensation would not be consistently pleasant.

Garbus’ compositions are seldom fixed in any particular genre, but she leans heavy on folk, R&B, and miscellaneous African influences. Melody and rhythm come easily to her, but the most striking aspect of her album is her voice, which is fiercely expressive and presented plainly with only natural reverb, so her boldest moments are almost shockingly dry and matter-of-fact. At some points, as when she tenses up to emphatically spit out the words “We can pretend it’s Christmas while we’re locked here in this box / while my brother and all his friends whip out their tiny teenage cocks / if I scream they’ll hear us so let’s count along with clocks” in “Lions,” it’s a sound of flattened horror. In other tracks, as in the gorgeous, nearly anthemic single “Sunlight,” she starts off with a delicate vocal tone that gradually hardens as sweetness becomes desperation, and desperation gives way to self-preservation. There is a fantastic balance here — raw and focused, immediate and careful, calculated intimacy. You can hear the seams in its construction, but Garbus always sounds entirely present and engaged on a level that goes beyond typical studio performance.

Buy it from Amazon.