[rating=7.00]
For two weeks last year, Merrill Garbus, the leader of the duo tUnE-yArDs, studied dancing and drumming in Haiti “to situate myself in a non-western musical tradition,” as she later put it in The Talkhouse.
There, half a world from her studio in Oakland, Garbus began to extract herself from a creative rut. A critical eye might view the approach as flirting with cultural appropriation. A keen ear, however, will hear that Garbus’ resulting third album, Nikki Nack, lands on the right side of that border between earnest creation and irresponsible imitation.
Garbus gets it. Her brief stay in the Caribbean only enhanced the homebrew aesthetic tUnE-yArDs showcased in 2011, on w h o k i l l, which paired noise-rock with layered pop experiments. Nikki Nack goes further, heavier on the percussion and rhythms, and relies less on repetitive samples. In performance, Garbus plays a snare drum and uses a foot-pedal to loop her own vocal on the spot. Her voice has never sounded better; she took lessons during tUnE-yArDs’ downtime last year. One second she sings a delicate lullaby, the next she combusts and takes on another voice entirely—a melodic shout. As she points out on “Real Thing,” “I’ve got to use my lungs.”
Much of Nikki Nack addresses Garbus’ soul searching, a journey that culminated with her visits with Haitian musicians. “Find a New Way,” the opening track, begins already in progress, as if disrupted, and sets up a sardonic narrative of getting one’s groove back. “Water Fountain” follows, bursting with the bounce and feist of a forgotten after-school special.
The album’s second half plays like a danceable tangent somewhat out of step with the catchier hooks of the first handful of songs. The galloping beats through “Sink-O” are harsh and densely produced, while “Why Do We Dine on the Tots,” Nikki Nack’s lone blemish, is a pointless bedtime story-type interlude.
Garbus and her bassist, Nate Brenner, performed only once last year, for nine minutes at a Tibet benefit at Carnegie Hall. That night, they joined composers of other generations, notably Philip Glass and Rahzel, who used minimal means to produce a maximum listening experience. And tUnE-yArDs appeared to be right at home. On “Look Around,” Garbus captures her rediscovered creative purpose in two lines: “On the one hand, there’s what sounds good/On the other, there’s what’s true.”
