Tune Yards deliver grooving rhythms to the Exit/In

You've got to get a load of this setup.

Merrill Garbus, the mind behind Tune Yards, came to Exit/In Friday night and put on one of the best shows Nashville will see this year. But to understand the appeal of her widely heralded live show, you first need to wrap your head around her equipment setup.

Directly in front of Garbus is a board with enough switches and effect pedals to put the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to shame. It's resting on top of a rug with highways on it -- the type you'd see in a small child's room.

So loud you can practically hear her through your monitor

Surrounding her microphone stands are a pair of floor toms, a pair of snare drums, a Korg synthesizer, and a hi-hat with a tambourine on top. Oh, and also her signature ukelele, with black masking tape covering the sound hole under the strings. She never leaves home without it.

After stepping onstage and taking a moment to survey the scene, Garbus cuts loose into a wild session of vocal improvisation characterized by African-themed chants, whoops, and hollers. It's the opening strains of "Hatarai." The crowd doesn't quite know what it's in for yet. There's a rumble here. And then a rattle there. What has she got up her sleeve?

On the record, "Hatarai" features several vocal tracks layered and looped on top of one another. To replicate that live, she activates a switch which plays the backup vocal parts to play through the speakers, while Merrill herself sings lead. It's a technique that allows her to create much more sound than one person could reasonably expect to generate.

The most iconic stringed instrument not named Lucille.

The lush, dense arrangements of "Hatari" soon give way to "Do You Want to Live?," a song with an excellent call and response section designed to get the audience's mojo flowing.

Garbus's larger than life personality is written all over her latest record, w h o k i l l, but in a live setting there are many details in the music that are hard to appreciate strictly from hearing the record. Listen to a song like "Gangsta" on the album and you might think to yourself, "Wow, this song has an awesome bassline." Hear it live and you realize the song literally couldn't exist without the bassline.

Simiarly, the extended saxophone solo at the end of "Bizness" provides the perfect soundtrack for some AAA grade booty shaking. Another great live song is "Powa" which is relatively reigned in, at least by Tune Yards standards. The hard, driving chords cut through the gentle acoustic melody to remind you there's a raw emotional nerve being struck here. And when she cuts loose at the end of the song, it's really something else.

And of course, seeing her break out the synthesizer for "My Country" was also a unique treat.

But if you're going to talk about Merrill's many instruments, you can't leave out the ukelele. Not many people would think of the ukelele as an aggressive instrument, but the way Garbus plays it she may as well be Jimmy Page. The piercing blare that buzzes from her Fender amp nicely accents the acoustic picking typically heard throughout each song.

Merrill Garbus implores you to groove to the beat.

The set moved by at a brisk pace, lasting just over an hour. She presented herself to the crowd well, occasionally making brief chit chat and opening up about sometimes feeling self conscious over having videos of her performances uploaded to Youtube.

But make no mistake: Merrill was in command this night. By the end, nearly the entire crowd was grooving and getting down to the sound of the bass, sax, and the pounding rhythm of the drums. Tune Yards have established themselves as a legitimate creative force, and one of the top acts to visit Nashville in recent memory.

(Oh! I almost forgot Pat Jordache, the opener. The man who once shared a band with Merrill Garbus brought his own band to the stage and gave an admirable performance. Not unlike Tune Yards, they were heavily rhythm based, with a pair of percussionists, and Pat Jordache himself donning the bass guitar. The sound was light breezy indie rock, with frantic tremolo strumming, pretty melodic picking, and the deep soulful voice of Jordache himself. Bravo, I say!)

Merrill Garbus's w h o k i l l is tuned to perfection

Is there still doubt that Merrill Garbus is one of the most unique and fascinating singers and writers out there? If so, then hopefully her second full length, w h o k i l l, will do much to displace that.
 
BiRd-BrAiNs, Garbus's first album under the moniker tUnE-yArDs, was a thought provoking collection of home recordings with dynamic arrangements and rather tinny audio quality. On w h o k i l l, she's gotten a big boost with the addition of bassist Nate Brenner, along with clearer audio quality, but the spirit is the same.

That she would choose to add a bassist says a great deal.  Garbus is a percussion and rhythm minded musician, and this philosophy lays the entire foundation for what goes on here.

Take a look at "Gangsta." It starts off with Garbus pounding a pair of large African drums, then an ear grabbing distorted bass enters the mix, and you have the basic beat which the rest of the song will play off of.

There is also a dash of world music aesthetic introduced via jazzy African horns, drums, and vocal arrangements which pop up periodically throughout the album.

Speaking of vocals - there's few who do it like Garbus, and it's a true spectacle.

Garbus is a intense performer with a powerful voice and style all her own. On stage, she can often be seen manning a ukelele or banging a giant tribal drum. She uses her voice not only for singing but also to create certain effects that fit with the music. Her voice can go from being rough, low pitched and manly to being airy and feminine and back again several times within a single verse or chorus.

By extension, there is quite a bit of musical ground that is covered on this record. "Es-so," which speaks of the pressures on women to stay physically fit, is a groovy tune with a slightly ominous feel.

"Powa" is a mellow, emotional tune about sexuality, while "Killa" boasts bonafide pop hooks and spotlights political braggadocio from Garbus that calls to mind Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth.

But most chilling of all is the off kilter lullaby "Wooly Wolly Gong, which combines lo-fi acoustic guitar, Merrill's hushed vocals, and an eerie set of lyrics to create something both truly beautiful yet deeply unsettling.

Other highlights? Besides the whole disc? The rockin' "You Yes You," and the jazzy world fusion of "Riotriot" are also standouts.

And I would be remiss not to touch on Garbus's attitude and lyrics, which is also a key part of the tUnE-yArDs formula. I feel these capture her essence pretty well:

"There is a freedom in violence that I don't understand. And like I've never felt before."

"I'm a new kind of woman; I'm a new kind of woman. I'm a don't take shit from you kind of woman."

"Now that everything is gonna be okay/ now that everything is gonna be alright. What if baby I cannot see the sound/what if baby I cannot hear the light?"

There are several different levels of depth to the lyrics, which provides a welcome level of complexity. Most of the topics on the album deal with femininity, sexuality, or violence.

No question this is one of my favorite records of the year - Garbus's individuality and creative energy are second to none right now.

w h o k i l l reflects a refreshing and bold attitude from an emerging artist, who's here to let everyone know she's one of the most enterprising and unique voices you'll hear in 2011.

Sing it, sister.

Score: 93/100