tUnE-YarDs//Bizness

Hello and good Tuesday to you. It seems like we all survived the great 405 shutdown of 2011. I spent the weekend mixing bizness with wedding planning, as I so often do these days. Six weeks and counting…wish me luck.

Ethan was playing me this new tUnE-YarDs record when he was here visiting a few months ago. I was liking it, but didn't get hooked in a way that made me want to seek it out immediately. In these situations, I usually add the band name to the list of band names I keep in my actual day planner book (because I am an actual dinosaur).

FF to now. This video's been popping up on various feeds (the face, the plus). And honestly, it's amazing. It's a really beautiful video that adds a lot to the song. It's almost like I couldn't fully listen to tUnE-YarDs until I saw this video, which is a weird thing to say, I know, because shouldn't the music stand on its own? The thing is, it totally does. It's just that, in this case, for me, it needed a little kickstart or something.

The sound sets are good. The bass line delivers. The build is a well-crafted mix of Animal Collective and Afrobeat. The lyrics are great. But what's the best? Merrill Garbus's voice, which is sometimes growling (ala Yaz's Alison Moyet), sometimes howling, sometimes pretty and always SO for real. Girl means it. We feel it. And isn't that the point?

tYs hits LA on 11/2. I will be there.

Here are two videos of the song, one official, one live:





Bizness.mp3

What's the business, yeah?
Don't take my life away.
Don't take my life away.