New Music Reviews: tUnE-yArDs-Whokill

"That Tune-yards album is so disjointedly catchy I either want to jump up and dance or jump out a window to get the hell away from it!" This is what I texted co-worker and friend Troy the other day from my edit bay at work I was listening to the new album from Tune-Yards, "Whokill", an album that throws everything from funk and afro pop rhythms to free form jazz bass lines all in a casserole of WTF is going on in my eardrums right now. It has no respect for genre and that's quite alright. Tune-yards is a project of singer, drummer, ukulele playing Merrill Garbus whose voice rides the spectrum from robust to slight and tender. To say "Whokill" is all over the place would be the understatement of the year. But once the melodies and rhythms hit you, oh look out, take shelter and maybe have a bad REO Speedwagon song nearby to help clear out your short term memory. If not you'll have "Gangsta" and "Killa" and "You Yes You" and the biggest offender of being so damn catchy, the first single "Bizness," all stuck in your head for hours or, worse yet, days. In a week and a half time, these songs creep up on me at the most unexpected times doing idle things and it kind of drives me mad. I'm showering the other day wondering what's a boy to do if he'll never be a gangsta or singing don't take my life away to myself as I make shells with sauce for dinner. Yes Merrill Garbus, you've pleasantly found a place in my head.

As it happens, those four songs are my favorites in this ten song affair, all ramped up with pinpoint energy and patchwork vocals. They're also the songs where Garbus demands your attention with her unique robust vocal
pipes ravaging through every nook and cranny of the song. On the chorus for "Bizzness" she morphs "I'm addicted yeah" into "I'm a victim yeah" while a mix of "Don't take my life away" follows on it's tails. It is hands down the most buoyant use of a double chorus I've heard on a song in two years. "You Yes You" brims with a Rastafarian attitude as Garbus states "Now that everything's gonna be O.K." until she reaches a completely different octave as a counterpoint with "What's that about/What's that about?" while "Killa" is just a mish mash of everything great about the album as it flows along on a quirky soulful beat. And while the vocal sirens that lead into the first verse of "Gangsta" may off-put first time listens, they quickly lend to the mischief through the rest of the song as the chorus has Garbus boldly stating "Never move to my hood, cause danger is crawlin' out the way..BANG BANG Boy-oi" until the song collapses into fragments of studio snippets and bad cell phone reception audio until it reaches a proper ending. "Gangsta" has at least twelve head scratching moments the first time you hear it leaving you bouncing from thoughts of "that was a bad idea" to "that was near genius" all while making your head bop to it's incessant beat.

Thank goodness the whole batch of songs here don't rage with that same intensity because it would be exhausting. Slower and more seductive numbers also make there way in to making it a nice quilt. The addition of a full time bass player Nate Brenner helps flesh out the sound that was very sparse on Garbus's first album with songs like the free jazz flow on the seductive "Es-So". "Powa" takes a straight ahead guitar sound out of Nick Lowe's book to good results and Garbus visits her lo-fi roots again with the sparse and delicate "Wooly Wooly Gong".

A couple weaker moments in a few songs stops this from being an essential item. Refreshingly, Garbus is very straight forward in delivery but never preachy. But the question rages inside of me that "Whokill"'s themes of violence and self awareness makes me wonder if this is genuine or just another outfit borrowing from other cultures to make it the new indie "buzz" sound of the moment. It can be, at moments, a little shallow in conviction. ("What's that about? What's That About???")

But just taken at face value, "Whokill" is a great binge album that you can take in a large dose at one time and get a special buzz from the barrage of disjointedness running amok with it. You can't identify any other band to it. Maybe Dirty Projectors but they're too vocal oriented with not enough rhythm. Or maybe the early back-beat of Soul Coughing but their vocals don't match the creativeness and range of Garbus. So how about a marriage of Dirty Projectors' vocals and Soul Coughing's back-beat?

I leave you with the question, "What's a boy to do if he'll never be a gangsta?" Now go listen to "Gangsta" and try to get that filthy, addictive song out of your head. I dare you. Have some REO nearby as a remedy.

Grade: A-

JHO Picks:
Gangsta
Bizzness
You Yes You
Killa

Source: http://www.jhostation.com/2011/06/new-music-reviews-tune-yards-whokill.html

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