tUnE-yArDs’ third full-length is a mass of endless technicolor yarn wrapped around sticky truths and doused in neon genius. Nikki Nack is so fun to look at, in fact, that one might not see its bleeding heart at all without pulling back the rainbow threads. Such is the game of one Merrill Garbus, whose work has always been composed of equal parts awareness and madness. Nikki Nack’s intent is subversion, both of pop music and stereotypes, and it accomplishes both, all while making us dance our faces off.
After facing serious fatigue both physically and artistically following her 2011 breakout, w h o k i l l, Garbus needed a change up, which is why she approached Nikki Nack from a different direction. This time around, she recruited production assistance for the first time by inviting Frank Ocean co-writer, Malay, and Rihanna producer, John Hill, into the studio for a bigger, glossier sound than ever before. Where w h o k i l l was centered mainly around horns, Nikki Nack is all synths and drums, the latter of which Garbus has intensely studied in Kenya and (most recently) Haiti where she also studied folkloric and contemporary dance. In fact, Garbus’s trip to Haiti became a highly formative element in the making of the new album. She went to “situate (herself) in a non-Western musical tradition” and came back with more ideas than she could contain. Those ideas spilled over into her process that she later described as “a wild mess. Chaos. I’m trying anything and everything rhythmic, and sometimes it sounds like an out-of-control beast I cannot begin to tame. But the rule is: don’t try to get it right, just be in the middle of it.”
The beast begins with “Find A New Way”, a song describing her initial struggle to create. Garbus refers to her complex art in toddler terms — “A sippy cup to keep a cap on all the screaming of songs/What happens when all the drink is gone…I pray to learn to pretend so I can sleep tight/But something doesn’t feel right.” Then we’re immediately grateful that she “found a new way” after then being introduced to the extremely catchy hopscotch track, “Water Fountain”, containing a familiar hike in intensity midway through, yet hitting new levels in terms of pop infectiousness. Slowing things down for a sort of old school slow jam, “Real Thing” finds her caging her ego, striving for authenticity, and encouraging others to do the same. “Everyone be you who you are…” Then there’s “Hey Life” which begins with a trippy cool intro and soon after plunges into an ode to how incredible life is.
There’s most definitely handfuls of positive vibes throughout Nikki Nack (Garbus obviously loves life), but there are also searing blows at racism, ignorance, materialism, gender stereotypes and the list goes on. “Stop That Man” references crime in America and the injustice caused by racial profiling, and in “Sink-O”, she condemns those who turn a blind eye on suffering. “I come from the land of slaves/Let’s go Redskins, let’s go Braves,” she sings pointedly on “Real Thing”. In a recent interview Garbus admitted that a lot of the themes have to do with her trip to Haiti, but a lot have to do with frustration with her own country. “I have something to say,” she declares on the last Michael Jackson-inspired track, “I mean it, beat it, don’t beat up on my body.”
“Oh my God, I use my lungs/Soft and loud any way feels good.” Listening to Garbus feel good, feels good. Engaged for Nikki Nack’s entirety, we experience newfound heights and depths from the frenetic pop largeness of “Water Fountain” to the off-kilter R&B sleekness of “Wait For A Minute”. The shards used to create Nikki Nack were gathered from the brain terrain of one of the most innovative artists alive, so it’s no surprise that the pieces come together to form a work of massive, impressive irregularity. Although “Sink-O” ended up as only a song and not the album title, the concept perfectly captures the essence of Nikki Nack. “[The title] came from my obsession with the word ‘syncopation’, which is a miserable sink-o of a word. Syncopation derives its definition from what it is not: rhythmically speaking, it’s not what you ‘expect’ to happen; it’s a ‘deviation’ from the ‘norm’.” Next to the norm, Nikki Nack is an absolutely welcome jolt to the senses, although we would expect nothing less at this point from tUnE-yArDs.