Performing Autonomy: Revisiting John Maus and tUnE-yArDs post-Occupy

Towards the end of last year, I wrote a fairly long post discussing tUnE-yArDs, John Maus and politics, especially with regard to the Occupy movement which was, at that time in London, still fighting for its right to remain encamped around the skirts of St Paul's. That was before I saw John Maus perform live (at Tufnel Park Dome in November), a pretty challenging experience that made me want to expand some of the ideas in that last post. So here's a sort of follow-up, although it might also be a kind of corrective.

I spent a lot of time discussing the contrasting elements in the two artists' recorded music, and how these suggest contrasting political praxes, so I was all the more struck (and excited) by how radically different - even polarised - their performance practices are. tUnE-yArDs' Merrill Garbus, in an attitude similar to that of Owen Pallett, effectively reconstructs her entire tracks by herself, using vocal loops, drums and guitar. We watch her record each voice one-by-one, layering over the last, to produce a one-woman choir that can be conducted by foot pedal.

Ten Favourite Albums of 2011

New Year is actually my favourite time of the musical year by far. I'm perenially propelled through midwinter on an avalanche of new music, aggregated from the year-end lists of all those many bloggers who've had better (or less scrupulous) access to more albums throughout the past year. Yet before I begin my annual attempt to soak up as much as I can of the good stuff that has dripped through my fingers, I still want to talk about my ten favourite albums of the year (especially since I'm bound to start regretting my decisions as soon as I sink properly into my January playlists).

As tends to happen when I compare my lists with those of more full-time bloggers, some of the space usually reserved for zeitgeist-definingly new stuff has been given over to exceptional new offerings from some of my favourite old stalwarts - the kind of album that Pitchfork will acknowledge gladly as an addition to an established band's existing oeuvre, but then overlook around list-time. Still, these ten weren't too difficult to assemble, since between them they easily demanded the majority of my aural attention as the year proceeded.

Political Visions/Political Actions: The Apposite Voices of tUnE-yArDs and John Maus

I’ve spent a little time at the Occupy London camp since its establishment last month, though not nearly enough to feel in any way qualified to be a representative of the protests. However, I am proud to say that I was at least there on the first night, in the exhilarating chaos of the first assemblies and the comprehensive yet unconvincing police encirclement. At that point there really was a very broad range of protesters represented: long-haulers and day-trippers, established British socialist groups and a huge number of European students showing solidarity with concurrent protests overseas. There was a slew of different aims, obsessions and strategies represented (although a good number of fundamental ideals were clearly universally shared).

In this article, I'll try to locate some of the differing (and at times warring) qualities of these young contemporary activists, as represented in the new political music of two artists giving early voice to this new political movement: tUnE-yArDs and John Maus. By comparing these two artists, I also aim to demonstrate two very different ways in which pop music can engage explicitly with politics.