Tune-Yards
i can feel you creep into my private life
[4AD]
On i can feel you creep into my private life, you can hear the first stirrings of indie music’s reaction, in album form, to Donald Trump’s election victory and it would be unsurprising for the theme to be prevalent in music released in 2018.
The lyrics don’t directly mention tiny-handed orange human atrocities, but they do often make pointed references to Garbus’* own reckoning with biggest threads of contemporary American politics: intersectionality, privilege, race.
Perhaps surprisingly the most resonant note is one of guilt: “I was just so tired, too tired to say a thing/Kept my head down, eyes closed, and let freedom ring” on Coast to Coast; “All I know is white centrality” on ABC 123; “I use my white woman’s voice to tell stories of travels with African men… I smell the blood in my voice” on Colonizer.
It’s interesting that Garbus, as a white, gender-non-conforming person, with a liberal arts (read: financially privileged) education, who studied in Kenya and interpolated African influences into her music (before influence was reclassified as appropriation, and thus a sin) identifies more closely with the oppressor class and the shame inherent in that. It’s not all self-evisceration, but feels like the loudest theme.
Musically, a quick comparison with 2014’s nikki nack highlights how powerful the new arrangements are. In place of stacked loops of human percussion are the precision thuds of a electronic drums. As opposed to simplistic, they are just less equivocal, more declarative. It’s the most club-ready music of Tune-Yards’ oeuvre, typed in the same kind of all-caps-followed-by-a-period stylisation that Kendrick demanded on DAMN..
Words – Ian Lamont
Like this? Try these:
Le Tigre – This Island
St. Vincent – MASSEDUCTION
Perfume Genius – No Shape
*As well as ditching their stylisations, Tune-Yards is now a two-piece, with long-time bassist and Garbus’ partner, Nate Brenner, now an official Tune-Yard, but Garbus is still the lyricist.
