tUnE-yArDs
  • HOLLY ANDRES
  • tUnE-yArDs

If tUnE-yArDs' music were a shop, it would be Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. The core duo—New England native (and onetime puppeteer) Merrill Garbus on vocals, ukulele, drums, and loops with Oakland's Nate Brenner on bass—have fashioned together super-freak folk into their third album, Nikki Nack. Complex patterns and loops woven with call-and-response experimentalism take on 8-bit, electronic shapes. Your ear thinks it won't work at first, but it does. Then Garbus drops it into an Annie Lenox gear and you're hooked. What's that over there, a shrunken head wearing pink knee-highs? A two-headed calf in a tutu? Whoa. It's a mummified astronaut with a banjo. Live, tUnE-yArDs' ensemble swells to five, and they perform the sideshow beats and compositions extremely well. Garbus had just returned from the European leg of their tour when we spoke. She was in New York. It was very early, still dark, Seattle time. On top of making coffee, I ate a mouthful of the beans and sang John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders" to wake up. When Garbus's call came in, I kept singing…

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