A few days after I saw tUnE-yArDs open for Beirut at Music Hall of Williamsburg, I went to film the amazing woman behind it, Merrill Garbus, in Bed-Stuy, where she was staying at a friend’s apartment for a short visit. She asked me if I had specific requests, and though I said she could play anything she wanted, she ended up picking three of my favorites, “Little Tiger”, “News”, and “Hatari”, and one new song, “Harold”. We tried the first performance out on the stoop, but it was amazingly noisy–multiple airplanes, spontaneous banging, and one “just yell it out and somebody will hear it” conversation. So we headed back inside, walking around in the apartment and singing in the bathtub, talking about the band’s young history, promising future, make-up tradition, and so on
“Little Tiger”, “News” and “Hatari” are available on BiRd-BrAiNs, which she recorded almost like a collage over two and a half years, and is getting a proper release in vinyl and digital formats from Marriage Records on March 10.
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Here’s a schedule of Secret Garden releases coming in the near future. If you’re unfamiliar with this ever-changing, magical garden, it is a video series in which I film bands performing a few songs outside the context of a regular show. Along with the schedule you’ll also find some “candid band photos” that, as a tradition of my own, I take after each shoot–though sometimes I forget.
If you’re a blogger who’d like to write a preview for any of these episodes before they release, just email me at hoovesontheturf [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll give you access to an “advanced screening” of a sort. Thanks!
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I’d traded my Animal Collective tickets for tickets to see Beirut at Music Hall of Williamsburg, and as far as live performances with tribal beats and yelps go, I really think I got the better deal out of it. I’m sure people compared Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards (who opened) to Bjork, and I suppose you silly indie listeners will greet any white musician with face paint and African beats with some amount of caution, and you might be right to, but Merrill isn’t fooling around, kids. From the moment she started layering tracks for the intro song, “Hatari”, she was 100% awesome. She was Rokia Traore meets Panda Bear. I’d seen her play with Sister Suvi once, and I didn’t think much of it then. But her own set last night was better than any Animal Collective show I’ve been to, and if Avey Tare and gang deployed a band of percussionists, they just might sound as convincing live.
Download “Hatari“
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