Tune-Yards

*****

Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton, March 18

Merill Garbus, the 39-year-old singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist behind Tune-Yards, has been using her genre-hopping noise-pop project to grapple with themes of identity and injustice for the best part of a decade.

But with the release of the band’s latest album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life, she finds herself at the centre of a zeitgeist, with the political turmoil of recent years forcing us all to reflect on our own status and culpability. Lyrically, the band have never sounded more cerebral or personal.

Garbus officially welcomed bassist and long-term collaborator Nate Brenner as the other half of Tune-Yards for this record, and he joined her on-stage at a sold-out Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) alongside drummer Hamir Atwal.

The dance elements of new songs ABC 123 and Look at Your Hands were ramped up to the max in a frantic but precise show that had the feel of a DJ set in its calculated flux.

Garbus’ immaculate command of rhythm and dynamics captivated a room that only ever stopped moving to anticipate the next drop or chorus, seamlessly leaping from dub to folk to afrobeat and more.

In a shimmering multi-coloured dress, she served as a conduit for a compelling palette of textures and sounds through her soulful vocals, trademark ukulele and a behemoth unit of effects pedals.

Fan favourites Water Fountain and Gangsta were predictably well-received, while the staccato proto-funk of penultimate song Bizness was pure euphoria.

Colonizer, with its jarringly confrontational meditation on white guilt set to a thumping, glitchy house beat, was a highlight — but the band’s politically-charged lyrics were often overshadowed by the whirlwind of harmonies, samples, synths and percussion on display.

It’s doubtful that fans immersed in the ACCA’s Sunday night party atmosphere will have cared about the dissonance one bit.

Tom Furnival-Adams