Listening to Who Kill, the new LP from UK artist Tune Yards, headed up by Meryl Garbus, really makes me want to employ one of those “What do you get when you cross 'this' with 'that'” kind of equations. Unfortunately, as fun and helpful as those measurements often are, in this case they proved ill equipped to define Tune Yards, leaving the listener equally ill prepared. Preparation is necessary when listening to Who Kill. While light hearted in demeanour, it is not to be taken so, as it's confoundedly condensed and chaotic structures will potentially leave you overwhelmed and maybe even annoyed. After some time, the web seems to untangle however, and one can discern strands of mostly interesting and at times dazzling music.
Garbus' voice can prove at times challenging to get a grasp on and grow accustomed to. Her range of verbosity, volume and output, pacing, and even style is constantly shifting and modulating. It does so at seemingly random and unpredictable intervals. She'll go from a traditionally linear pathway of vocal utterances, to hyperactive and frenetic tantrums of singing. In the opening track “My Country” a silky smooth and relaxed pace sharply diverts into a lighting fast spoken word section and then jumps right back. Her decibels bounce disorientingly from restrained and seductive whispers to erupting and escalating wails, as in “You Yes You”, leaving your volume setting completely helpless. Her vocal aesthetic is sometimes set to wispy tremors like in “Riotriot”, then transitions to something much more brash and bellicose in songs like “Buisnezz”. At times her voice is akin to a cross between Amy Whinehouse and Missy Elliot. She spends most of the songs brazenly and at times violently switching back and forth. Despite the many bodies and conceits she seems to occupy she always does so from a position of either serene calm or strict confidence. The result being, while it seems alien at times, her voice always seems within her control and firmly grasped by at least some kind of logic and intent, as opposed to her just screwing around with no regard for what works and what doesn't.
Her voice does not seem to work in tandem or along the same current with the melody, which can be just as transforming, giving you a lot of separate stimuli to deal with. More often than not, it doesn't exactly fit together in the most traditional or rational sense. Much like her own voice she takes several different approaches to music, in this case divided by genre, and throws in the proverbial blender; only to then play with every different setting and then throw that blender into a bigger one. She shows her affection for bohemian reggie, ska punk, and jazz in particular, unperturbed by the fact that the speak in such different languages and to such different audiences. Modern electro pop is used, but only very modestly and conservatively, although I really love what she does with it. The simple yet colourful synthesizers in “My Country” that sort of just tag along with the so much more grand and exaggerated brass melody, not to mention her own voice, is a great deal of fun. She does a similar trick with a similar arrangement for the finale of another stand out track “Bizness”. The horn sections at times articulate grand standing big band types of rhythms, and other times exemplify dark and dreary 80s noir kind of vibes. The hip hop tones are very prevalent, but usually fairly laid back and unobtrusive, providing something of a backbone for her to layer other types of music onto. Guitar is used mostly sparingly but usually to great affect- I'm sure the final guitar riff in “Killa” is a modified sampling of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles song- the cartoon theme, not MC Hammer.
At times she skillfully, artfully, and surprisingly manages to force aforementioned styles and instruments together in a successful and logical fashion. I point in particular to the last part of “Riotriot” where a calm piano lounge style tune is subverted and overpowered by clashing percussion and queazy squeaking brass meshing together in an almost hallucinogenic manner, only for that to be overpowered by her own voice, then the instruments are forged into a jubilant, perfectly synchronized bright eyed jazz beat. at other times she just haphazardly throws beats together, but that's part of the fun and appeal to the album. Through careful mixing and work in post, she ensures that no one sound becomes too overbearing and obscuring, and that some type of progression and melody is maintained. This album could have descended into the kind of mess that M.I.A.'s last album did, but it manages to avoid it for them most part. There are certainly points in the album where the constant and unfiltered barrage of her musical and vocal melange just collapses under its own weight like black hole of wreckage, trapping the listener inside. Thankfully, those points are reasonably spread out.
It's when you put it all together that the album either shows its potential or becomes too cluttered to bare, depending on who you ask. “Es-So” forces out a blurry quagmire of a guitar beat backed up by Beck like sonic distortions, but it's accompanied by an almost nursery rhyme like in its elegance voice from Garbus. In the next song she spits out “Bang Bang Bang” in a garbled guttural voice only to shift to something more airy and speed up; all this accompanied by a cool and collected bass line under constant assault for obnoxious and squealing saxophones. It's sleazy and riotous and dignified and demure all at once. By not just accepting, but revelling in the fact that her brand of music is such an aural mess, she is free to let it fall to pieces and then forge it into something new- something that is at times rough around the edges, but at other times really quite beautiful. You might be surprised at how specifically articulated sentiments of triumph, excitement, and contentment are in music that is so seemingly chaotic, random, and undirected.
“Willy Willy Wong” unfortunately is a sever misstep. Its an energy killing drudge that completely drops the intent of mixing up vocals and music for a dreary acoustic string, and a bored comatose Garbus reading some lines. The song teeters towards intriguing as it seems to keep approaching genuine creepiness and then shifting towards soothing comfort, but it never fully achieves either leaving you bored and frustrated that you have to listen to it keep on trying in such a meager fashion. One wonders why she even bothered to include it; it's like it's there just to spite the rest of the collection. Luckily the rest of the tracks on Who Kill are much more diverse and compelling. Tune Yards definitely isn't for everyone- it's not even entirely for me. It's staggeringly wide breadth of voice and sound so recklessly patched together may be a little to much for some to put up with. I don't recommend as some sort of test that only more informed listeners will pass- that's as pretentious as it is not true. I recommend it, because somewhere in the garbled cacophony I think you'll find something to like. I found quite a few things.
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