tUnE-yArDs – Hatari
tUnE-yArDs
This is the only track capable of stopping your heart this year. The recording of ‘Hatari‘ is all cheap and tinny, the creaks and spikes cutting in to sound more manic than my reaction.
‘Hatari‘ is a show, quite frankly. It opens with an almost-canon of melismatic chanting, quickly succumbing to the next movement – a psychotic ukulele loop and tribal drumming. The beats are huge, the syncopation in a fight, but the temperance remains steady. I feel like Merrill Garbus (tUnE-yArDs’ real name – it’s almost even better, right?) is singing at my face.
Someone [Ed - you mean you] once described tUnE-yArDs as “’40s dancehall though the eyes of a Ritalin-prescribed toddler”, and while it takes a listen to the album (BiRd-BrAiNs) to merit status-labelling, the muddle of ‘Hatari‘ and the frankly barbaric playing of that ukulele with passion and quirk, and… hell, here’s something obvious: Why Aren’t There Legions Of Kids Queuing Up Outside Merrill’s Front Door Wanting To Marry Her?
Anyway. It’s all rough-sounding, and crazy. Crazy as in actually crazed, like a desperate call for survival in a jungle. Sometimes there’s just one vocal line, and then occasionally there’s a chorus of howling, savage animals (actually just Garbus‘ multi-tracked vocals, again). One of the song’s catharses includes a siren-resembling vocal part so far away from human that it sounds like a a tiger cutting up their own insides. A baby tiger, perhaps.
Am I amazed in fear or awe? Currently not sure, but what the bejesus are YOU doing with your life? And did I mention that this is a lap in front of my other Track Of The Year?
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