Tune-Yards/Merrill is wonderfulllll!
So here’s the thing about re-issues. Often they’re just an excuse to get more attention to something that has already gotten a good deal of attention. HOWEVER, here’s one re-issue that I’m okay standing by: Tune-Yards’s “Bird Brains”. This album is undoubtedly my favorite album of 2009 (and I refuse to give that a second thought). A mix of scrappy sound samples, African folk songs, stomps, claps, shouts and yells all stitched together beautifully to tell the story of the dirt, your dirt, of tigers, of fires, of children and of berry picking. This stuff is big. Big news. Merrill Garbus, the genius behind Bird Brains, made this whole album in a downright dirty homemade fashion, purposely only using free software and only releasing the album through her website for donations (as little as one cent would’ve bought you the best CD of 2009– go figs).
It’s an album that, put simply, deserves way way way more attention than we can give it. Got it? It deserves to be re-released. And, wonderfully, there are 2 bonus previously unreleased tracks, “Want Me To” and “Real Live Flesh”. Check out “News” at Merrill’s myspace and try not to fall in love, k?
Oh you fell in love, really? Because I’d like to tell you about an awesome opportunity to go see this Merrill Garbus aka Tune-Yards: The Natural History Museum in LA, January 8th. It sounds mindblowing, if you ask me. Let’s go!
yessss diarama yessss
About the author
Music Director - Our music director takes more dance classes than academic classes, collects noisemakers, sups on soup in the wintertime, and still finds time to read Susan Stryker's "Transgender History" to KZSC's pet seahorse.