About a decade ago, Merrill Garbus did the seemingly impossible: She honored her alma mater, Massachusetts’ Smith College, by Smithing harder than any of the school’s graduates in history have, in response to criticisms over cultural appropriation in the band’s work. She whipped up her very own anti-racist curriculum. She participated in anti-racism workshops. She confronted her whiteness like Liam Neeson staring down the alpha wolf in Joe Carnahan’s The Grey. The product of that self-reflection, 2018’s I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life, remains one of Tune-Yards’ best works, a well-done example of academic allyship.
Until they stop making music, of course, the Oakland art-pop outfit’s subsequent discography should be read as a natural effect of Garbus’ striving for self-improvement, from 2021’s Sketchy. to their new record, Better Dreaming, a release comparable to a magician’s sleight of hand: Each of its 11 tracks pull your attention toward what Garbus and her co-bandleader and partner Nate Brenner are doing musically, and away from what they’re doing lyrically. This likely isn’t the point; each song is pointedly focused on the buckets of awful shit being spilled into and onto the world right now, including, but not limited to, anonymous ICE stormtroopers yanking a woman away from her family in broad daylight; an attempt by the current Republican administration to fatten billionaires by slashing Medicare and Medicaid funding and handing possible death sentences to folks reliant on them; and a catastrophic trade war, sparked by an idiot king ignorant of how the global economy functions, and who believes he can just accept the “gift” of a flying palace from a foreign government.
Circumstances are as dire as they’ve ever been and they grow worse every day. As you dance in your living room to Better Dreaming, you may end up missing the message. If there is a single critique to make of Tune-Yards’ efforts here, it’s that the production backgrounds the songs’ meanings; this is what we in the reviewing game call “nitpicking,” or perhaps “grasping at straws.” Art in any medium can fly over an audience member’s head if they aren’t paying attention. It’s incumbent on them to think about what they’re watching, reading, or hearing, and, indeed, if you hear Garbus’ words in tandem with the deceptively funky genre blend she and Brenner present on Better Dreaming, you will no doubt hear that, as much delight as the music expresses, she is very, very pissed off.
“Watch me as I punch you in the eye / Watch me as I punch you in the other eye / Nothing here that wasn’t advertised / Didn’t you agree to be homogenized,” Garbus asks in falsetto on the opening verse of “Never Look Back.” It’s a violent evocation three tracks into the album, a shocking, pronounced statement of her political imagination where the dominant element is its vocalizations: an echo chamber of breathy chiming that stops just short of drowning out the punchy bassline and rim clicking Motown groove. By design, the song prioritizes Garbus’ lyrics. It’s just that, at the same time, the intersection of those lyrics with the irresistible foot-tapping tune threatens distraction from the blunt force effect of her intonations.
There are worse problems for an album to have than its singing glazing over its motifs. Besides, the music is so catchy that repeat plays are practically inevitable. You’ll want to listen to Better Dreaming over and over again, and the more you do, the more profound an impression its purpose will leave on you. Garbus often reaches out for justice in her lyrics, merciless as her own justice may be on occasion. “I’ll see you sitting on the rubble / I’ll see you dreaming of your streets of gold / You said, ‘I’m going to hell’ / Well I’ll see you there,” she all but screams on the outro to “See You There,” her version of “if we burn, you burn with us” from The Hunger Games. Garbus wields greater force than that. Even if you aren’t the “you” she’s talking to throughout the track, the scorching indignation might leave the hem on your shirt singed. (Send her your tailoring bill.)
Not all is doom and gloom on Better Dreaming; occasionally, Tune-Yards really just want us to dance, for the joy of shaking our booties and for the sake of a reprieve from white hot anger. “Limelight” is the confluence of Garbus’ and Brenner’s love for 1960s- and 1970s-era funk, so true to the source that George Clinton will beam with pride of indirect ownership every time a Tune-Yards fan plays it; it’s also personal, featuring a guest appearance by the pair’s toddler on backup vocals. “Baby’s alright / The kids are alright / The baby was up all night / Baby’s alright / Shining so bright / Put ‘em in the limelight,” rings the chorus, as if in homage to the aforementioned child. “Limelight”’s rhythm-forward sound echoes from there, most notably on “How Big is the Rainbow,” where political concerns rematerialize, but reframed in a new, personal context: “You have become someone that I don’t recognize / You twist reality just to bring it down to your size,” Garbus belts on the second verse—maybe a criticism intended for political figures, combined with a familiarity to render the identity of the person she’s addressing ambiguous.
Thanks to the marriage of Tune-Yards’ cool-as-hell beats, whether up tempo or unhurried, and Garbus’ sharp lyricism, Better Dreaming may emerge as one of their all-time great records after a few years’ passage. The party the group throws here is non-stop, with necessary interludes for real talk. It’s rare to experience such abandon and outrage alongside music this animated. But that’s the job of the listener, to hear all of what the album has to say at once. It’s a heavy task, but it’s also worth the effort.
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers the movies, beer, music, and being a dad for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours. He has contributed to Paste since 2013. You can find his collected work at “his personal blog.” He’s composed of roughly 65% craft beer.
