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tUnE-yArDs

@ Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, 15 February 2012
5 stars

by Edward Randell

tUnE-yArDs

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Merrill Garbus walks to the pair of microphones centre stage and sings a single note. The audience cheers. Garbus curtsies. She starts again, launching into an elaborate yodel of Bobby McFerrin-like inventiveness. Gradually, she adds layers of vocal loops then, still singing, begins beating out the drum groove of Party Can. "Do you wanna live?" she cries. "Yes!" roars the crowd.

Garbus, high priestess of tUnE-yArDs, has no trouble whipping a room into rapturous excitement. But her performance at Shepherd's Bush Empire carried an extra weight of expectation. As she confided to the audience near the end of the set, this was the largest headline show the band have played thus far, a substantial step up from their acclaimed performance at London's Scala last June. Garbus seems to be on her best behaviour, wearing a demure black dress with a yellow sash - though sporting her signature stripe of face paint. She thanks 4AD effusively in the course of the show, which could be because the audience includes a large contingent from the label - or, more likely, she just has lovely manners.

For all her politeness, Garbus is in total control - of the stage, of the audience, of her incredibly demanding technical setup. Flanked by drums, she uses live looping to build intricate syncopated rhythms and hocketing vocal lines. As she works, grooves and melodies reveal themselves, jigsaw-like. A large ukulele around her neck also adds a spiky texture reminiscent of the guitars on Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica. A single tiny hiccup (a missed vocal entry) at the start of Youth draws attention to the precision of Garbus's juggling act, a task which she manages to execute without ever losing her cool or her rapport with the audience. And then, in contrast to the tightly drilled backing parts, there are her whispering, belting, swooping lead vocals.

Garbus is joined by Nate Brenner on bass (and occasional synths and beer-bottle percussion), along with a brace of saxophonists: Noah Bernstein on alto and Matt Nelson on tenor. Though only four, they amply do justice to the songs from the 2011 w h o k i l l album (which make up the majority of the set), with some thrilling added flourishes. Gangsta closes with a playful volley of impeccably tight bass-and-drum hits; the sax break at the end of Riotriot, with its honking multiphonics, would not be out of place in a free jazz gig. But for all their musical daring, the band keep a firm hold on the crowd, and when the horns start snaking round the riff of breakout single Bizness, the audience goes insane. These are exuberant party jams, as illustrated by the band's sudden outbreak of pogo-ing during You Yes You.

"I'm a new kind of woman / I'm a don't-take-shit-from-you kind of woman", raps Garbus on Killa. Though she shares Laurie Anderson's sense of humour, and the African-influenced complexity of Dirty Projectors, Garbus is a true original. Her virtuosity never comes across as smug or cold: ecstatic, celebratory music flows from her, and it is wonderful to behold.

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