YAWN

Okay, not quite a tropical adventure, per se, for there are no vines in this album but I swear I can hear monkeys hooting in the background. The album in question? Yawn‘s self-titled debut EP which sounds like a mix of Capybara, Animal Collective, and Vampire Weekend. Seriously. I think this album is the love-child of college radio. “Kind of Guy” is a catchy island tune that feels like yucky oh my gosh fun. Following that track is the perfect Animal Collective rip-off (I mean this in the best way possible), “David”. I love this one. Primal call-and-response style calling with simple percussion and the sounds of a rainforest in the background. Okay, I’m not sure if the rainforest is actually there but it’s kind of implied. Please go listen to this nowwwww! This is their myspace. David is on there and it is reallllly worth a listen. Also worth a listen? Everything on KZSC, including the shows that are gonna play the bazooka out of this.

YAWN: not-so-boring tropical adventure is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

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

Tune-Yards re-issue? is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz