I want to take a break from my bookmarks series to post about this new album, WHOKILL by tUnE-yArDs, which I am really surprised I like so much.
A few weeks ago I was searching for reviews of some album, and I ended up on Pitchfork’s first page, which displayed a review for the just-released WHOKILL, and this sentence caught my eye: “tUnE-yArDs is the music project of Merrill Garbus, a songwriter, vocalist, percussionist, and ukulele player who has fused elements of acoustic folk, R&B, funk, Afro-pop, and rock into a bold, uncompromising hybrid all her own.” I was like, Oooh, I really wonder what all that together sounds like!
I started listening and was sort of mesmerized. It was just really different. I listened to all the songs several times and still couldn’t come down hard on whether I “liked” her stuff or not. Above all, I’d say the music is expressive—sometimes at the cost of sounding “good.” She sings about some gritty, society-challenging sorts of topics, and the way she transposes the themes into music can grate your ears—but it’s supposed to. On the other hand, a lot of it is catchy, groovy, musical, upbeat, awesome, etc.! All right, I’m not much of a music critic, but I hope you get the idea. I was surprised by how different she can make her voice sound from one song to another, or even within the same song.
I couldn’t decide which song to post that could be “representative” because a lot of them are really distinct from each other. This is the opening track. Listen to more!
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