Tune-Yards' Whokill

I just got the album Whokill by Tune-Yards yesterday and I'm only listening through it now, but goodness what a feast! Every track is a carnival of sounds. I haven't heard of Tune-Yards until quite when I accidentally read through Times Magazine's list of Top 10 Albums for 2011, which included Adelle's enjoyable album 21 and PJ Harvey's Let England Shake, of which I have both. I liked how Times described Whokill  as an "experimental album by a woman unafraid to try something new" so I thought it worth it to try and get hold of it.



How I did not hear of this album beats me. It was listed by the Pazz & Jop Poll as the top critics' album  of 2011. It has been more than a year since the album was release in April 2011 and I only discover it now. I'm guessing that the weirdness of the album has made it disappear under the accessible sounds of other artists like Adelle, which is unfortunate because while Adelle is great, I think Merrill Garbus is awesome! Then again, I don't own a television and do not listen to conventional radio, and of course I live in Korea, so it is very possible that I should miss many things that is quite mainstream. My exposure to pop culture is very serendipitous. If I don't stumble onto something by accident on YouTube or some other such way, it may go by completely unnoticed. Which was almost the case with the Whokill album.

Whokill is an unusual album with a hodge-podge of genres and styles that I'm sure many people will find just too unconventional for their taste. But I guess this is the very reason I like it. Whokill isn't trying to conform to popular expectations. It is what it is. And what it is, is something uniquely fun, interesting, and creative.