The Story
tUnE-yArDs is the project of Merrill Garbus, built around loop pedals, ukulele, lo-fi percussion and a voice that layers into its own choir in real time — with bassist Nate Brenner as her core collaborator. The stylized lowercase-and-capital name is part of the project's identity, right down to how it's written.
The 2009 debut BiRd-BrAiNs announced the method; w h o k i l l (2011) broke it wide open, folding funk, punk and pop into songs that stayed live-wire even on record. It was named the number one album of 2011 on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll and was later named among Pitchfork's 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far.
Garbus and Brenner have kept moving — Nikki Nack (2014), I can feel you creep into my private life (2018), sketchy. (2021) and Better Dreaming (2025) — alongside side work scoring the 2018 film Sorry to Bother You.
Live, the appeal has never dimmed: watching Garbus construct a song from nothing, loop by loop, remains one of the most physically compelling things in current music.
