Best of 2014 The DIY List 2014: Tune-Yards forges her own path

Tune-Yards features at #97 in The DIY List 2014, our round-up of the artists who defined the past year through albums, unforgettable shows and the unexpected. This interview is originally from the May 2014 issue of DIY.

“Let’s not pretend that the world around us isn’t falling,” Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus sweetly sings on ‘Nikki Nack’’s fifth track, ‘Look Around’. She’s right. We’re often attempting to disconnect from the reality of the state of the world - staring down at our shoes whilst walking and not taking a second to look up to notice the buildings above are getting higher and increasing in density. It’s a subject that Merrill has thought about a lot and comes back to often, but perhaps not something she expected to discuss whilst eating breakfast, in her hometown of Oakland, California.

The more left-field sounds that feature on the new album include a bag of rice, water bottles, a vinyl stool and lampshades and for her, these background sounds are really important; organic sounds as objects - as tangible things you can touch and see. “I think that’s a great way to put it,” muses Merrill. “I definitely come from more organic sounds and I miss them when they’re not there. We live in a very synthesised world in a lot of ways, a very digital world. It’s always nice to remind ourselves of the organic and the natural. If we’re not reminded of that then the implications are really scary.”