I was at Tune-Yard’s coming out party, 2009 at MHOW opening for Dirty Projectors where she just slaughtered the audience. A perfect match of musician and audience, he partial experimental, weird rhythmed loopastic performance brought the hipsters to her knees. It is rare that you see a performer’s breakthrough performance but this was absolutely that.
It made Tune Yard an unstoppable star and indeed and her sophomore album was released to huge acclaim, though I thought it was a little obvious.
I haven’t seen her since but news of a gig at Rough Trade this May 7 th made me think it was time to check her out again before the release of her third album, Nikki Nack May 6 th which would seem to make the Rough Trade gig a record release party.
I haven’t been to Rough Trade yet, to be honest I never much liked the store and also, Morrissey’s hit job on the label and stores (and now club!) was enough to make me not very willing to go out of my way to check it out. But I had to get there at some point right, so OK, here we go now.
As for Tune yard, I picked up a tix at noon on Wednesday and tried again at 1230pm, at which point it was completely sold out. So, if you got a ticket good for you, right? I know she can’t be as great as she was in 2009 because there is no element of surprise plus looping sounds is nothing new anymore. Still, it should be worth a viewing nevertheless.
