tUnE-yArDs – 'BiRd-BrAiNs' review
BiRd-BrAiNs is the work of lone songwriter Merril Garbus recording her extraordinarily rich and untamed voice onto a digital dictaphone while piecing the rest of her beats’n’ukelele music together with free-to-download software. It’s scratchy, clipped and harshly chopped and, at one stage or another, showcases ever positive and negative aspect of uber-lo-fi pop. Thankfully however the good far outweighs the bad, and for the most part BiRd-BrAiNs is an intense and beguiling, dizzyingly exciting listen.
The record revolves around Garbus’ voice, which recalls a feral Regina Spektor fighting with early Nina Simone, and, at its best, is some of the warmest and most sensual singing you’ll hear all year. The vocal performances on Hatari and Fiya, in particular, command instant attention – the former for its guttural nonsense syllables and looped, chain-gang chant, the latter for its soulful, heartfelt tenderness. Elsewhere, Sunlight feels like a great lost Beck record, all cut-up hip-hop beats and swaying grooves, and News’s melody is full of headfuck chromatics that are both stomach-churningly deviant and satisfying. Endlessly original and addictive, BiRd-BrAiNs is a gorgeously alien, furiously independent sound.
9/10
