tUnE-YaRdS / Whokill

tUnE-YaRdS
Whokill
(4AD)
* * * *

It's confession booth time: I put off reviewing this record because, on first listen, it made my brain feel like it was being vacuumed backwards into a worm hole.

Displaying the kind of avant-pop usually found on a Warp Records release, the second album by Californian lass Merrill Garbus is a bold and slightly disorientating step into experimental weirdness.

Opener 'My Country' finds her gibbering in tongues over a thumping backbeat while saxophones, African spiritualism and '80s Bowie synths zoom past the window.

Things don't get easier: 'Es-So' sounds like Aretha Franklin singing gospel over a reverse nursery rhyme, 'Riotriot' installs a drum kit into an frightening lunatic asylum, while 'Doorstep' mixes a soulful '50s jazz vocal with breakbeats to unique effect.

As you've probably guessed, this is an album that feels daunting at first, then rewards with familiarity: Garbus' voice is incredible, and the music gradually reveals itself as addictive despite initial suspicions that it's difficult for the sake of being so. Welcome to your new parallel universe.

Ric Rawlins