Tune Yards caught my attention a while back when 4AD released a video of Meril Garbus performing in studio. I’m not going to post it again…but I was hunting around the net to find out what Tune Yards had been up to and came across this live footage at Cargo this week. This just shows that New England native Merill Garbus who is the singular project meister of Tune Yards, could eat up and spit out most of the stuff that passes for a Brit award these days, no offence, well, maybe a little. This intense and mesmeric live performance just underlines the fact that she can do what she does both in and out of the studio. Unlike at the Brit Awards…cough, cough, splutter.
Merill Garbus doesn’t come across as being an extrovert performer in the studio sessions I’ve seen so this video had me glued to my seat. She even had the crowd jumping!
Tune Yards performing “You Yes You”:
Her latest album “Bird-Brains” can be heard on Frukie from next week which still carries her staunch DIY aesthetic banner as you would expect alongside her coarse folk ingenuity and bold loops. Tune Yards has garnered the respect of many music critics. The Guardian gave her 5/5 and called her “heartstopping”, she was described by Stereogum as “a self-contained Sublime Frequencies compilation, jumping between blues, African tunes, shiny reggae-esque sprawls, and lo-fi folk”, infusing the worldly sonic palette of M.I.A. or post-punk pioneers The Raincoats. We expect that with this current tour she will continue to garner that respect from those that appreciate real and raw talent.
Unfortunately her UK leg of her tour is over and she is now heading to France. You can get all the dates from Tune Yards Myspace.