Merrill Garbus has performed as tUnE-yArDs since 2009, and the band name has always been synonymous with forward movement—whether because of her explosive performance style or the always-surprising way in which her songs unfold.
First gaining notice with the debut BiRd-BrAiNs, which The New York Times called "a confident do-it-yourselfer's opening salvo: a staticky, low-fi, abrasive attention-getter," Garbus forged a reputation as a formidable live presence through relentless touring.
In 2011, tUnE-yArDs released its second album, whokil /, a startling and sonically adventurous statement that led to a whirlwind period where Garbus and bassist Nate Brenner accrued accolades from critics (including the #1 spot on the Village Voice's 2011 Pazz and Jop poll), performed in front of increasing numbers of rapturous crowds around the world, and collaborated with the likes of Yoko Ono and ?uestlove. It was a thrilling ride, but it was one that needed a little bit of recovery afterward.
"I took the Fall [of 2012] off and started taking both Haitian dance and drum lessons," says Garbus of the post-w h o kill period. "It was nice; I was trying to be healthy and have a good time. And then, in January [2013], I was like, 'I have nothing.' I've never had nothing before—I've always had some songs that I'm planning on recording; I've always been working live with the looping pedal and writing that way. And I thought, 'OK, if I'm going to grow as an artist, I need to do this differently.'
"So I went to my studio five days a week and told myself I would be doing two demos a day. I also had rules: 'This week I'm only going to write using drum machines; 'This week I'm going to write using vocal melodies first, and build something around that.' At the end of that, I had about 30 demos."
Those demos would eventually gel into Nikki Nack, the stunning third album by the Oakland-based band. A complex, textured statement that opens with a clarion call to 'Find A New Way' and spends its 13 tracks getting there, it's a showcase of how Garbus's songwriting has blossomed, and a testament to how current technologies can combine with themes from the past—Saturday mornings spent watching Pee-Wee's Playhouse, puppet shows based on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, hard days made less so by the refuge provided by top-40 radio—to create something utterly original.
"It was weird what stuck," Garbus says of the writing process. "The first song that felt finished is not on the album, and I almost scrapped 'Water Fountain.'" That pulsing track's post-apocalyptic vision is presented as a sing-along, a tale of streets where once-useful structures have been rendered into disintegrating husks with Brenner's bass playing providing an increasingly concerned counterpoint. "I almost threw it away," she recalls, "because it sounded like a kids' song. But I really liked the theme, which mirrored what I was seeing in Oakland—people don't want to pay taxes, but the taxes are paying for the water fountain, and for the trash to be picked up, all these bare essentials."
