Tune-Yards, performing at BlueSix, San Francisco, 8.15.09
Tune-Yards is the musical moniker of one Merril Garbus, and her album BiRd-BrAiNs is not only the best album you will hear this year, it is a mark on the musical landscape that will continue to grow. Even more surprising is that the album was recorded on a digital voice recorder with free mixing software. You can’t anymore punk rock that that. Her music defies categorization, yet feels so comfortably familiar. And in a live environment, it is one of the best experiences in music today. We are thrilled to have the following interview with Tune-Yards.
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FoeWeel: I understand that you recently moved to the Bay Area. What caused you to make the move and from where did you move ?
Tune-Yards: I haven’t quite moved yet, but it looks like I’ll move to Oakland in the fall. My boyfriend has a whole lot to do with it, but I also spent the summer here and really fell in love with the Bay. Mostly the potential that I feel here is what pushed me over the edge to make the decision. I’ve been officially living in Vermont and spending most of my off-time in Montreal for the past four years. Both of those communities have nurtured my music and career and it’s bizarre to think of leaving for somewhere all the way across the country. But it feels right at this moment in time: a larger musical community, a crazy history of soul, R&B, and hip-hop music, and sun!
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FW: What are you listening to these days and what are you reading?
T-Y: I’ve spent some time this summer listening to the Sasha Fierce side of the latest Beyonce. Also White Hinterland, the new stuff that no one’s heard yet because Casey’s a friend of mine and let me listen. I’m often listening to Kurt Weisman and Chris Weisman, and my sister, Ruth Garbus. And that Dirty Projectors band which had me addicted from The Getty Address. I don’t think I listen to music very much compared to some other people I know…I also like silence a lot. My boyfriend has been turning on Bay Area KISS FM lately, which soothes.
What I ought to be listening to: the latest Erykah Badu, Brahms, and the first Wu-Tang Clan album.
Reading. Right now I’m being a total music nerd and reading music criticism, specifically the Best of 2008 Music Writing edition. Fascinating articles on Wu-Tang (see above) and Keyshia Cole and the Congo. I started Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and will finish it on tour, I hope.
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FW: Your signing to 4AD label in England, the former home to the Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Red House Painters and now TV On The Radio and Bon Iver, has always been a true music lover’s label. What brought you to 4AD rather than a major label?
T-Y: That’s a funny question, because 4AD feels so big compared to everything I’ve known before! But a major label deal is a) not something I’ve had the opportunity to turn down and b) not something that would ever fit with the way I live my life. I like to question the impact, politically, socially, environmentally, etc., of everything that I do. So having a team of 300 people working on getting my new CD manufactured in the cheapest way possible and sold to people like candy bars at Wal-Mart doesn’t sit right with me.
By allowing 4AD to release the album I felt that my music would get a wider exposure while allowing me to maintain a connection with everyone involved in marketing me; that I could keep tabs on the process, and have more say as to the decisions involved in selling the records. And so far the 4AD cats have been great. They get so much done but really do listen to my preferences and objections.
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FW: Are there any plans for a headlining tour?
T-Y: In October I’ll do a tour of the east coast and Midwest that I think will be my first “headlining” tour. But in order for it to feel like that, people have to come to the shows, I suppose…which I’m never convinced that they will. I’m only just realizing that people are starting to know about me and like me enough to get their butts to the places I’m playing. I think most musicians learn to play to nobody, or to chatty cathies, or in tiny time slots that they beg for. It’s crazy to finally play to people who came to see me.
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FW: My girlfriend noticed that your music has a child-like feeling as well as some nods to nursery rhymes. Where did this come from?
T-Y: I’ve been noticing that too! Hmm, hard to put all of my thoughts on this in order, so I’ll go a little free-association on you. Nursery rhymes-children’s songs-musical bedrock/loamy soil-creepy-childlike innocence juxtaposed with cruel realities-complex truths within simple structures. There you go. Kids and childhood and memory all mean a lot to me. I was also a nanny for much of the time that the first part of this album was recorded, and hanging with a two-year-old most certainly influenced my palate.
I’ve also been working on a lullaby album with several friends, and I was a puppeteer in my past life…I’m fascinated by complex work for kids, rather than dumbed-down, simplified, truth-avoiding crap-o.
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FW: Your live shows are quite powerful. From your incredible vocal range, your sampling, the funky rhythms from you on the drums, and to your vaudeville-like act, you seem to engage the audience and make them part of your performance. A give and take experience. What influenced you in your stage setup and live performance?
T-Y: I majored in theater in school, and then worked for a professional puppet company for years, so performance is absolutely my focus as an artist, maybe even more than composing. I might even argue that the way I record is also a performance of sorts. In any case, that’s where I come from.
When I started writing songs I played open mics and shows at bars and cafes and loud places where no one’s there to listen to you. So I think during those years I honed a skill of getting people’s attention, drawing them in, and keeping them there. Drums were something I finally got up the guts to incorporate even though I didn’t know how it would work, but it has made such a difference to play something that physically compels people to move and get involved.
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FW: If you could cover a hip-hop song, what would it be?
T-Y: Hits from the Bong by Cypress Hill or The Champ by Ghostface.
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FW: From gigs with Beirut to Micachu & The Shapes, and to upcoming gigs with Dirty Projectors, do you feel the ground swelling beneath you with all of this attention that is starting to come your way?
T-Y: Ground’s the same. I’m the same. Just trying to stay myself and stay focused.
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FW: I think your music has similar qualities to Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors and it would seem that their fans should be a natural fit for your music. How would you describe your style of music?
T-Y: Thank you for the comparison. I guess one similarity between me and the bands you mention is a definite awareness and referencing, if not outright theft, of African music and musical ideas. And when I say African I include all musics that can be traced to African cultures, and perhaps I don’t include Middle Eastern and Asian influences simply because I’m not as familiar with those traditions.
We reference rhythms and polyrhythms. We reference inexact and stilted rhythms. We reference non-western harmony or simply abandon the confines of western harmony. We reference the concept of the human voice as a piece of a larger whole, as opposed to a “lead” vocal.
Is that what we do? I mean, I think that’s what we do, but I can’t speak for those dudes and gals. Shouldn’t that be what we do, since we have this joyfully endless access to obscure and historic music from all over the world?
Describing my own music feels weird and I don’t think it’s necessarily my obligation to do that. But: I sing and loop vocals and bang on drums and parlor-trick the uke. Hop, skip, and a jump.
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FW: Who has been your biggest musical influence, and your biggest life influence?
T-Y: Whoa. My parents are my biggest musical influence, and my biggest life influence. They are beautiful, wonderful people, and musicians, and introduced me to countless genres and traditions of music.
Michael Jackson also ranks on the music side; Woody Guthrie and Emma Goldman on the life side. Crazy people, all of them.
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FW: What is your biggest indiscretion?
T-Y: It’s funny, I had to look up that word. I dunno, man. Like “misdeed,” or “wrongdoing,” something I messed up and regret? I regret the time I spent hating myself. It feels like a wrongdoing to have hated myself, particularly after living in Africa, when I had so much information to share and instead turned it all inward on myself.
I’m not at all sure if that’s the kind of answer you were looking for. I have a bit of a nun/martyr complex, so I’ve lived my life trying to avoid indiscretions.
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FW: Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?
T-Y: Many, many people. Many of my friends with whom I already collaborate and look forward to spending more time with. I’d like rappers to put verses over my tracks, to arrange and record with R&B artists, to do anything with Zap Mama and Ian McKaye.
Cee-Lo. Laurie Anderson. Maya Lin. Dancers. A female drum corp. A high school choir. A gal can dream, no?
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Tune-Yards – Little Tiger – Is this Nina Simone playing with Radiohead? At the 3:11 mark when the chorus kicks in, you have a better understand of nothing at all.
Massive Attack featuring Martina Topley-Bird – Psyche [Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid Remix] – MTB’s voice goes so nicely with the relaxed beats of Massive Attack even though they stopped making music 10 years ago.
Flight Of The Conchords – I Told You I Was Freaky – I think they should do a tour of dance clubs and quit doing television.
World Party – She’s The One – Karl Wallinger, one of the supposed heirs to the Lennon-McCartney songwriting throne is playing the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival this year. One of the great pop songwriters.
