Tune-Yards (Katie Stelmanis / Bonjay)
The Horseshoe Tavern. Sunday, June 13, 2010.
On arriving at The 'Shoe a little bit past the 8:30 start time, I headed downstairs to hit the bathroom before the show started. Walking past me were Bonjay, vocalist Alanna Stuart commenting to beat provider/laptop guy Pho, "I think this is the earliest we've ever played." Onstage, though, she made lemonade of that, incorporating a series of observations about the difference between early and late crowds.1 There wasn't much of any sort of crowd on hand at the get go, though people were consistently trickling in.
The band's rep is as a beat-intensive, high-energy party act, so one could see why Stewart might worry how the tunes would translate to a Sunday night, early-in-the-bar type crowd. But the setlist was well-designed to deal with this, with material like "Creepin'", a new song with more of a slow-burning groove, seemingly more designed for this kind of environment than the dancefloor. Also working in the their favour is that Stuart is a pretty magnetic performer2 with a strong voice. She's got smarts on display, too — giving some astute self-descriptions on stage, she almost obviates the need for third-party analysis, commenting at one point, "we're moving away from the dancehall electro into some more nuanced music." (This is probably more correct and concise than anything I could have come up with.)
Besides a lot of material from their forthcoming EP Broughtupsy3 that explored their more tuneful direction, there was also a live mashup/remix/cover of a pair of Feist songs ("Honey Honey" and "How My Heart Behaves"), those two songs melding into one another, as did most of the rest of the set thanks to some seamless transitions.
Being a party-humpin', laptop-powered unit brought a few of the usual limitations — like a lot of canned backing vocals and so forth, but for a dance-inducing sort of band, Bonjay has no shortage of well-written songs to go with the electric delivery and this never felt like a just-press-play dance mix. Having built up the energy level, the last couple songs gave a taste of their more straightup electro-dancehall side. Stewart even coaxed some hand-waving from the crowd, who were getting into it. Closing out with "Gimmee Gimmee", the band left a most favourable impression. They've been tipped for awhile as ones to watch, and live, they gave a hint as to why.
Listen to a track from this set here.
Though there had been a steady building trickle of a crowd, the place was suddenly filled up as Katie Stelmanis hit the stage — there was obviously a contingent who had come to this show to see her. No surprise as she's been building a local audience for a while now with her mix of arresting vocals and synth-y dirgepop. She dared to start on the slower side, with a lumbering iceberg of a number (a new one I think — it began "on the morning I was born again") before picking up the pulse, with a booming beat from Maya Postepski and icy (or, perhaps, "Walking on Thin Ice"-y) guitar licks from Carmen Elle, who also added superb backing vocals. Bassist Dorian Wolf rounded out the band.4 So although Stelmanis' synth work and operatic vox are at the centre of the picture, this is very much a group sound.5
The songs are ornate and orchestral, and they get by more on their atmosphere than on a lot of overt hooks. This is a mode that is less immediately satisfying to me, so should I report that a couple of songs didn't really work, consider the source. Even still, I can readily acknowledge that these are all tightly-crafted, generally concise tunes, and live, this mostly worked, thanks to the strength of the band.
The stuff that didn't work for me might grow with repetition as well, seeing as the band was playing mostly new material from, we can assume, both a promised 12" on One Big Silence as well as the pending full-length follow-up to 2007's Join Us. Stelmanis seemed eager to focus on the new material, though she did close with crowd-pleaser single "Believe Me". I've seen Stelmanis play with a couple different set-ups supporting that album and I can say that this highly-talented band is definitely the most compelling live formation I've her with yet.6
Listen to a track from this set here.
Such a solid undercard for the show meant I was going to have a good time no matter how things went with the headliner. Which is good because, truth be told, I went in not really sure how much I liked Tune-Yards. On record, Tune-Yards is a solo project for Oakland's Merrill Garbus, who received top-mark accolades in some quarters last year for her BiRd-BrAiNs album, which I found admirable for its DIY spirit, but also tinny and cheap-sounding as hell — and ultimately, more a chore than a pleasure to listen to. There were good moments there, but also nearly as many over-mannered annoying bits, but I wanted to see her play live to see where I really stand on this.
Taking the stage alone, Garbus was greeted with cheers as she played a drum into a looping pedal, creating the percussive bed to launch into the first of several songs not from the album. As the song proceeded, she was joined by her three-piece backing band adding guitar and bass and percussion all around.7 Following that was another new one, which asked the musical question "What's a boy to do if he'll never be a gangsta?". The song was sprightly and catchy as all heck, but also featured a spastic breakdown in the middle. So again, there's a mix of the easily compelling with a more fractured sensibility.
Looking over the audience, she declared it a wonderful turnout, adding, "may I also complement you on your wonderful energy", because, yeah, the crowd was really into this. She then turned to her album, running through "Real Live Flesh", "Sunlight" and "Fiya". The latter would be an example of a song that particularly came to life in a live setting. Filled with a buzz from the crowd, Garbus played another new song, this one going in a different, quieter direction — in fact, it was a lullaby, complete with "go to sleep, little baby" lyrics and all. When the song hit a rough spot in the middle, the crowd's encouragement patched things over and Garbus kept going, the song stretching out for more than five lulling minutes before the band kicked things back awake with "Hatari" — perhaps her signature tune. The song includes wordless wordless singing in a pay-attention-to-the-scarequotes "African" mode — though a cynic might also attempt to place it in an appropriative lineage coming down from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Regardless, it is a song that demands attention.
The main set ended with another new one — possibly called "Don't Take My Life Away", which got as much applause as any off the tracks that the audience already knew. the band encored with more non-album tracks, starting with "You Yes You" (from a limited-edition 4AD Record Store Day 12") which won approval for having a part of the song dedicated especially to jumping up and down. That was followed up by the rocking "Party Can", with Garbus asking the crowd "Do you want to live?" (Answer: "yeah!").
That would have been the end, but the sustained applause brought her back out again, somewhat to her surprise, as she walked out on stage and asked the crowd, "Really?" as if she hadn't anticipated such approval. After canvassing the crowd for suggestions, she closed out the night with "Jumping Jack".
If nothing else, hearing her live gives an argument for Garbus as a singer of notable merit, with range, powerful lungs, and a willingness to garble things up a bit when she feels a need to. And as I'd surmised, hearing the songs in higher fidelity than the album offers gave a chance to really consider their virtues. I wouldn't say the show converted me to an avid fan, but it did enough to make me want to keep paying attention to where Garbus goes with this next.
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 "Another good thing about 8:30 shows is that we can actually say, 'we have CD's for sale' and you guys aren't too drunk to remember."
2 Which I noted when I saw her with her other band.
3 Which will be getting sent out into the world with a release party at The Garrison on Thursday, October 7, 2010.
4 For those tracking who-does-what outside this band: Maya Postepski is also in the intriguing new Trust, Carmen Elle plays with Donlands & Mortimer plus her own fine solo work and Dorian Wolf is ex-Spiral Beach.
5 A plan to acknowledge this by switching to a band moniker was put on hold when Stelmanis' first choice, Private Life, turned out to be already spoken for. A new band name is still pending.
6 Afterthought: In light of What We Know Now, I wanted to revisit this set, as I was curious to see just how close this "proto-Austra" phase was to the finished product.
"The Beast" might be the fulcrum between Stelmanis' past "solo" work and Austra, both as a piano-driven piece, and something that relies on guitar textures instead of synths. At this show, "The Villian" sounded closer to something by much-missed mope-rockers The Organ, and included little death-disco guitar stabs from Carmen Elle. This one epecially hints at another direction that Stelmanis might have chosen to push these songs.
Overall, with just Stelmanis on the keybs (and less of a willingness to work with backing tracks at this point) the sound is understandably thinner — "Darken Her Horse" sounds particularly anemic here compared to the ultimate album version, and at this point "Beat and the Pulse" doesn't have nearly as much of either of those things. Not fully evolved, then, but with eight of nine tracks at this show coming from what would become Feel It Break it's striking to note how much of the framework was in place. Added 2011-07-21
7 I'm not sure if this is her normal touring arrangement, as Garbus would later comment, "it's not every day we play with so many people on stage, and it makes me feel like very song is an encore."
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