Tune-Yards, Bell House, Brooklyn

When Tune-Yards (aka Merrill Garbus) starts to play, we can’t help but think of a shamaness, a priestess, the Pythia at Delphi. It’s not just her zebra-stripe facepaint, though that does help. While setting up and chatting with the crowd, she seems plainspoken and wholesome, but when she starts to perform she is utterly transformed. Her voice has an unbelievable range, from a soft lilt to a Jamaican dancehall toaster’s staccato to a primal scream. She live-records loops of herself chanting, playing the drums, playing the ukulele, and summons them forth, a whole host of herself to multiply her power. It often seems as though her body is almost overcome by the forces it’s trying to channel, face contorting or eyes bolting open all of a sudden. She seems to give no thought at all to looking suave and cool for her audience, and that of course is what makes us all root for her.

There are a lot of us, indeed, and the size of the crowd in the immense Bell House performance space has the up-and-coming performer at a bit of a loss. ‘I’ve never played in front of so many people who knew they were here to see me,’ she says with a blush. Though she admits, near the end, that she’s been having to write songs just to have enough material to fill a full-length set, she makes the most of what she’s got, playing songs from her album ‘Bird-Brains’ (‘Fiya’, ‘Hatari’), tracks that she’s posted online (‘Powa’, ‘Real Live Flesh’), and new songs that she’s only played live (‘Gangsta’, ‘Bizness’). She loosens up, having more fun, jumping around in circles with bass player Nate Brenner, but she’s still a bit in shock when some of the crowd members begin singing along the words to an unreleased song. ‘How do you guys know the words to that song?’ she asks incredulously. ‘Even I don’t know the words!’