tUnE yArDs owns my heart

“She is the best act in Montreal right now. People go fucking crazy.” Tyler Rauman (of Telefauna and My Neural Art - Indyish interview here) said this into my ear last night within 10 minutes of Merrill Garbus aka tUnE yArDs taking the stage at Casa del Popolo for her POP Montreal POME Records show. I was beaming from ear to ear up at her with the packed happy crowd at my back, torn between wanting to document everything little thing she was doing, and wanting to throw my camera and clothes and memories down on the floor with my bag to dance with nothing but my sad funky soul on display like hers was.

I feel lucky, I’ve gotten to work with Merrill twice before, thanks to cool Indyish members who got her music into our lives. Marilis Cardinal went to shoot Sister Suvi, Merrill’s other band project, as some of her first photo blogs for her internship with Indyish. Then, thanks to Marilis’ booking, Sister Suvi played our Christmas Mess 2007, instruments spilling off the stage and into the audience at the relatively small and straight laced downtown pub that we colonized for one snowy night with experimental indie music, contemporary dance, Jane Austen mini lecture, choir and craft fair. Sister Suvi blew our minds and had the waiters clapping in their kilts at the end of the night.

Then, early last spring, when I was a little involved with putting together a goodbye party for a local indie designer and second hand store, Wa’ou, the awesome-at-finding-brilliant-music Sarah Shoucri of Upp Records booked Merrill Garbus to play in the tiny, kooky Wa’ou. She stood with her pedals and ukulele in the window and again utterly bewitched the small crowd into a glowing memorable moment bubble. Since then, I’d seen bits of her act and heard reviews (including all the ones on Indyish) of how she’s been developing the sound. So I knew what to expect going in last night. What I’d heard recently made me want to be at Casa with tUnE yArDs over all the other awesome fricken shows one could be at on the sole Saturday of POP Montreal, and she did not disapoint. I feel like I could write a thesis about what she does, but to be more to the point just take little a taste of this: