tUnE-yArDs

This is good! The drumming is fantastic, the tune-yards style tonal cluster background vocals work really well. Better than anything on the tune-yards record, never got into that after the first single.

For Fela covers, nothing matches MAW Expensive (with Wunmi singing Upside Down):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efLcPbJd7QY

Clarke, have you ever heard Rusted Root?

its the kind of thing people will wince at later. like going through an old box and finding a 10,000 maniacs peace train cassingle.
― scott seward, Tuesday, September 20, 2011 3:42 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Brutal truthbomb. Icky music.
― Clarke B., Monday, June 4, 2012

not... at all?

yeah, no. i can see how people who hate merrill's music might want to make that sort of sneering comparison, but it's lazy and cheap, imo. the two don't share much in common besides the hippie/boho vibe (which they generate in very different ways) and the fact that there's a woman on the mic. tune yards come on a good deal stranger, sharper and more challenging that 10,000 maniacs ever were.

It's not that they share much in common, but there's a very specific kind of "wow, I was listening to THAT?" feeling Scott perfectly nailed... I read it as less a direct comparison of the two groups and more a capturing of that feeling. I just don't connect to Merrill's voice or her way of singing, and that hippie/boho vibe you mention is generally a real turn-off for me. But more specific to Merrill, I'm with flopson way upthread in that her way of singing makes me uncomfortable somehow, sort of squirmy and embarrassed.

see, what i got from that is your suggestion that this will age poorly. And thus far at least that's not true at all. Only two years yes, but Tune Yards sounds as good to me now as when i first heard it.

I kinda think more time has to pass and more people have to let Tune-Yards fade from their immediate listening habits in order to determine how well they've aged... That feeling Scott describes is, for me, one of a bygone minor cultural consensus that leaves people scratching their collective head down the road.

I have basically settled down as mostly agnostic on the question of the merits of tune-yards but it seems very, very strange to claim as counter-argument to a prediction that something will not age well to say "well it still sounds fresh to me two years later!" Two years is nothing. "Love The Way You Lie" is almost two years old and it doesn't sound dated or so far removed from the context of current pop music that no one can figure out why so many people fell all over it. No one's going to be able to answer this question until the tune-yards albums are as old as the 10,000 Maniacs albums.

dan otm

but I do see some stylistic/cultural signifier similarities between TY and past-pop-crit obsessions

like, say, Arrested Development, Annie DiFranco, lol even Alannis a little bit

coco rosie?

i guess that was one word

i'm less interested in what makes people pick up stuff like this than it what makes them (sooner or later) put it down

Fiery Furnaces

okay, five of the six mentioned so far are female-fronted...

i just find the whole idea of "man are you gonna hate this in a few years" spurious on the face of it.

I want a Shackleton remix of Bizness.

In between the gorgeous singing on other parts of the album I get a CocoRosie vibe. Maybe a little Indigo Girls. Do not have opinion, still want remix.

Oh yeah Graceland with a loop pedal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as91OCbbEsc

New album Nikki Nack in May 2014. Clips sound badass.

happy to hear about this

I have a friend who hates tune-yards more than anything. His name is Nicky. He is very angry right now.

But my name's not Nicky.

Ok yeah this sounds pretty badass

i also hate tune-yards more than anything. i click this thread out of a perverse fascination with my hatred.

yeah that mix above sounds great

excited

"Water Fountain" http://youtu.be/j-KulvW2TUQ

Great stuff.

yep

this has everything that would make me think I'd like it, and yet somehow I don't like it

something about it reminds me of summer camp mess hall

Great stuff. Especially the last part where everything happens at once.

I like this song a whole helluva lot!

fun song. i hate the way she capitalizes odd letters in her name.

sToP cApItAlIziInG eVeRy oThEr lEtTeR iN yOuR nAmE tUnE yArDs

looks like a hostage-taker's ransom note.

It sounds like it'd fun to play on bass.

this album is so massively great

her songs seem bonkers, in a good way.

new album is so good http://www.npr.org/2014/04/25/306543443/first-listen-tune-yards-nikki-nack

""Real Thing," one of the most trenchant comments on modern fame in recent memory, begins with a coy, tightly clustered, Destiny's Child-style verse"

Destiny's Child-style verse from ~tUNe-yArDz~? pass

Love that the difficult punctuation exercise has been replaced with extra italics work, Nikki Nack

This is so great. It feels quite different from whokill. More intricately detailed, fewer simple distinctive song ideas, lots more restless jumbling and scattering.

"Look Around" is incredibly lovely and I feel like I haven't heard anything like it before.

I was underwhelmed on my first listen. Her vocal and instrumental tricks often seem forced. Will give it another listen or 3

It seemed v bitsy/selfconscious on first listen, maybe wrong obv

Her vocal and instrumental tricks often seem forced.

I hear that on, e.g. the chorus to "Wait For a Minute", where the "OW OW OW"s seem to have been forced onto the wrong beat and make the song sound broken. I assume that's Merrill deliberately messing with the smoothness of the track (meant to express self-doubt/stasis).

gonna need a few more spins to determine what I'm thinking, feels a little hit and miss on second pass.
water fountain prob a top ten single of the year for me tho

Sounds marvelous on third listen.

I wasn't sure I needed another Tune-Yards album in my life, but this sounds pretty good to me so far.

I kinda miss the saxophones... The many synths aren't really a good trade, it takes away some of her uniqueness and energy. But I really like her project, I love the lyrics and I love the way she explores identity. Rocking Chair is marvelous.

What type of crazy punctuation/typography thing should she do next to drive the music press crazy?

I vote having line breaks in the middle of
her al
bum tit
le
like
this

A really obvious point to make, given all the post-Haiti-trip drumming on the record, but a lot of this sounds like a lost Slits or Rip Rig & Panic album.

Second the comment above about "Look Around". "Real Thing" and that is a great 1-2 punch.

Could happily listen to Merrill singing all day.