tUnE-yArDs Changes Tune for Next Album
- Posted on Feb 4th 2010 12:30PM by Jessica Lewis
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Garbus reached high ranks with critics and fans in 2009 with her first full-length, 'BiRd-BrAinS,' in large part because of the unique production quality of recording on a Sony voice recorder and mixing on free shareware.
Though this will hardly deter her creativity, it is a huge step. Garbus told Spinner she still doesn't plan on recording her voice in a regular microphone, but will likely use it for the instruments.
"I love my voice through that [voice recorder] more than any other microphone," she said. "I have a hard time listening to my voice when it's captured with so much fidelity, I almost feel that it doesn't have the same quality as if you were listening to me sing live versus through that recorder. It's obscure in this way that it makes me feel that I'm speaking to myself. It's almost more human because it's somehow flawed or messed up."
Garbus believes that capturing every detail on studio equipment isn't necessarily more truthful to what it really sounds like. But she has realized that after releasing 'BiRd-BrAiNs,' to do that again would be "sort of insane."
Capturing sounds and her voice on her Sony recorder was important for the album as it was chronicling a part of her life. Garbus now has closure, but will use the recorder again if she hears something interesting. 'BiRd-BrAiNs' has a lot of sounds from a nanny job she held in the Martha's Vineyard, but it was also heavily influenced by living in Kenya, Vermont and Montreal. Garbus has recently moved to California, thus another huge change that will be sure to affect her next release, albeit a more learned approach.
"You can incorporate any sound into a piece of music or each sound is its own piece of music," she said. "It can get sort of maddening trying to capture everything around you, because it's so tricky."
Garbus is also re-thinking the use of her ukulele for the next album. She's been writing songs on drums with loops, finding that the ukulele serves as a good way to incorporate chords. This isn't the first time Garbus has changed things up for tUnE-yArDs, though. She used to be opposed to mass releasing her music on CDs and LPs, using only tapes, but the label 4AD won her over.
Garbus head to Europe on her first headlining tour beginning February 9 followed by an opening slot with Xiu Xiu in the US until mid-April. Then she'll return to her new rented studio space in Oakland, Calif. to begin recording her next record.
