BiRd-BrAiNs by TuneYards

BiRd-BrAiNs, the debut from Merrill Garbus's project Tune-Yards, first surfaced as a cassette on Marriage Records on June 9, 2009, before 4AD gave it a limited pressing that August and a worldwide release on November 16 with two extra tracks. It's about as homemade as records get: Garbus recorded almost all of it herself on a handheld recorder and mixed it in Audacity.

The limits became the sound. She didn't own a bass, so the drums had to carry the low end, and they do, thumping and clattering under the ukulele and loops that are her stock in trade, and under a voice that can coo, yelp and roar in the space of a verse. The result is scrappy, joyous and gloriously odd, lo-fi pop built out of whatever was lying around. "Fiya" is the one that reached the countdowns, and Whokill came next.

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