“Off the wall” is the term that keeps springing to mind. There’s just so much going on! I’m relatively new to the musical world of tUnE yArDs, but this song served as the best introduction I could have possibly had. Constructing arrangements from lots of contrasting bits and bobs, while finding unusual yet wholly effective ways to emphasise melodies and hooks, the third album ‘Nikki Nack’ gave me a headache on the first listen, which can be contributed to the fact that I’m not used to music like this. And that would be because no-one else makes music like this. So credit to New Englander Merrill Garbus, the brilliant mind behind tUnE yArDs, who also feature Nate Brenner on electric bass. Recorded in Haiti in the summer of 2013, ‘Nikki Nack’ is the third full-length release. It appropriately begins with a track called ‘Find A New Way’, and carving out uniquely different paths is something this LP does very well indeed. Dominic Valvona at the Monolith Cocktail has recently reviewed this enjoyably inventive record, hailing it as “a hyperactive sound-clash, an electric kool-aid luminous flavour of bubblegum pop, Nikki Nack is once again fuelled by a larger than life version of African rhythms and sounds, with Merrill digging deeper than ever to pull out something fresh.” Read the full review HERE.
