Bleep

Four years on from the excellent Nikki Nack LP and Merrill Garbus’ tUnE-yArDs project return with another big statement. Long-time collaborator Nate Brenner is now fully incorporated into the group, and as producer of I can feel you creep into my private life he provides a thick, slick 80s pop sheen to these dozen tracks. It’s another impressive performance from Garbus, whose vocal style remains one of the most unique in the business. She commands everything here, from ‘I Feel Love’-indebted floorfiller like ‘ABC 123’ to the moody post-punk of ‘Colonizer’. On that song and others - for instance the mutant disco of ‘Private Life’ - she pens adroit lyrical deconstructions of personal agency and the relationships between the individual and society on matters of sex, race and party politics. Heavy stuff, but as usual tUnE-yArDs make it sound like great fun.