![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/tune_yards.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhen Merrill Garbus made Bird-Brains<\/i> \u2013 the 2009 debut recording from her Oakland-based project tUnE-yArDs \u2013 part of what earned the album critical plaudits was its quirky, offbeat character. Eleven years and five albums later, tUnE-yArDs returns with Sketchy<\/i>. And at this point in her career, Garbus and her primary collaborator, bassist Nate Brenner, feel less inclined toward making music that\u2019s different-for-different\u2019s-sake.<\/p>\n
\u201cThinking about how I approached songwriting in my earlier days, I think I felt a lot more insecure about writing catchy songs,\u201d Garbus admits. \u201cThere was something that felt really important about setting ourselves apart, being creative or more creative than the pop music that I heard.\u201d She says that when she made Bird-Brains<\/i> and its 2011 followup, Whokill<\/i>, she was drawn toward making music that was \u201cdifferent, experimental or whatever you want to call it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Those qualities are still very much in evidence on Sketchy<\/i>, released March 26 on tUnE-yArDs\u2019 longtime label 4AD. But there\u2019s also a sense that Garbus and Brenner are more comfortable applying those characteristics to melodies that are accessible, to songs designed to remain in the listener\u2019s head long after they\u2019re heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we mature, I do think that we’re more comfortable with settling into catchy choruses,\u201d Garbus says. \u201ctUnE-yArDs has a texture that is very different than a lot of other sounds of other groups; we don’t have to prove ourselves to be different anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Garbus, some of that increased confidence may have come as a result of applying her inimitable talents toward the creative goals of another artist. In 2019, tUnE-yArDs provided the score for Boots Riley\u2019s dark comedy film Sorry to Bother You<\/i>. Garbus agrees that film scoring \u201creally feels like you\u2019re supporting someone else\u2019s vision,\u201d but that the fact that Riley \u2013 a musician in his own right \u2013 brought tUnE-yArDs into the project for a reason.<\/p>\n
Riley \u201calready felt [that] our aesthetic, our take on music, would be the same,\u201d Garbus says. \u201cI\u2019d have to ask him, but I would imagine that he’s hearing music in his head as he’s crafting the story and the words.\u201d She admits that after making 2014\u2019s Nikki Nack<\/i>, she was \u201chaving a lot of questions about what the heck we were doing as a band.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working on the score for Riley\u2019s film was \u201cpart of an evolution,\u201d Garbus believes. It afforded her \u201cfreedom to not have to think about what the music was trying to say in my own words; I could focus [more] on the musical aspect.\u201d Garbus says that the score project also gave tUnE-yArDs the opportunity to use different musical tools than it had in the past. \u201cAnd I think that is really showing up on Sketchy<\/i>, [too], she says.<\/p>\n
One thing hasn\u2019t changed a great deal for tUnE-yArDs over the course of six albums, two EPs and more than a dozen single releases: the music\u2019s life-affirming character. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely by design,\u201d Garbus says. Though she laughingly points out that \u201csome people listen to [us] and they use words like \u2018dissonant\u2019 and \u2018ouch\u2019 and \u2018abrasive,\u2019 she seeks to make music that not only reflects the truth of life but also \u201cprovides some fuel to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allowing that she finds it increasingly difficult to tease apart the inspirations for those twin goals, Garbus says that music that moves and inspires her \u201chas some raw quality \u2018where the musician is telling the truth and is also buoyant and energetic \u2013 even in the slow songs \u2013 and [conveys] a dedication to living.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressed on whether she thinks of herself as an optimist, Garbus re-frames the discussion. \u201cThe truth is,\u201d she insists, \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter whether I\u2019m optimistic or not.\u201d She points to signs that among \u201cwomen of color and Black women in particular, there\u2019s a real culture being grown around transformative justice.\u201d She also cites \u201ca real people-power messaging that is coming through in pop culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garbus understands \u2013 and is comfortable with the reality \u2013 that what she and Brenner do with tUnE-yArDs is entertainment. But at the same time she aims a bit higher than that. Way back in April 2015, her group was a featured act at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. That even focused squarely on experimental, avant-garde, genre-blurring and generally outside-the-box artists; other performers included Kronos Quartet, Laurie Anderson, Tyondai Braxton and the Bad Plus. Even though much of what she does leans more toward pop, Garbus feels a kinship with those artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really got into performing through experimental theater,\u201d she explains. Garbus believes that her role as an onstage performer is \u201cnot first to make the audience happy and entertain, it’s to challenge them.\u201d That\u2019s the kind of music that excites her as a listener, as well. She aims to create music \u201cthat makes your heart beat a little faster and makes you go, \u2018What’s going on? I don’t understand!\u2019 It\u2019s music that gives you feeling before comfort, temptation before a feeling of safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
That edginess has informed all of Garbus\u2019 work. In her earlier days, \u201cit felt important to be weird,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt important to be experimental and to complicate things and to \u2018add a bar here,\u2019 add \u2018anti-harmony,\u2019 to make it clear: \u2018This isn’t supposed to go down easy.\u2019\u201d But these days, there\u2019s an added tension between all that and a comfort in crafting nice melodies when she wants to. It\u2019s a tension that yields new creative dividends on Sketchy<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s a through-line connecting Garbus\u2019 pre-tUnE-yArDs work with what she\u2019s doing at this moment. Garbus got her start after college as a puppeteer with the Sandglass Theater in Vermont. Days before the release of Sketchy<\/i>, Garbus appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live<\/i>, performing the album track \u201chypnotized\u201d with the help of a look-alike puppet. So the refreshing weirdness that marked early lo-fi works like Bird-Brains<\/i> remains at the core of everything Garbus does.<\/p>\n
Even though the 11 songs on Sketchy<\/i> were written before the pandemic began, there\u2019s an eerie, prescient quality to some of the lyrics, a character that offsets the sunnier outlook of other parts of the record. \u201chypnotized\u201d includes the lyric, \u201cPeople aren\u2019t anywhere to be found.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what you call that,\u201d Garbus says. \u201cUncanny? There were certain things in the air already.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Merrill Garbus made Bird-Brains \u2013 the 2009 debut recording from her Oakland-based project tUnE-yArDs \u2013 part of what earned the album critical plaudits was its quirky, offbeat character. Eleven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51],"tags":[2280],"class_list":["post-20849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-tune-yards","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20851,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20849\/revisions\/20851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}