Welcome to the latest installment of our series Guest List, where we ask artists, bands, and industry folks to share a 10-song playlist, along with a few words about the mix. Everything is fair game, whether it's on-the-road jams, a curated mood soundtrack, or their pre-show mix.
During the late aughts, Tune-Yards emerged near-fully-formed from songwriter Merrill Garbus. After a buzzy debut, the duo of Garbus and partner Nate Brenner, who are based in Oakland, reached a critical high with the release of their 2011 sophomore album Whokill — a maximalist, bracingly political work of Afropop, funk, punk, and folk that challenged and enthralled the lily-white indie rock world. At the time, Pitchfork’s Matthew Perpetua wrote that Garbus possessed “a total conviction in her personal, idiosyncratic, high-stakes music.”
In the years that followed, Tune-Yards have ebbed and flowed. They’ve collaborated on the soundtracks of shows like Orange is the New Black and Transparent and collaborated with Bay Area rapper and filmmaker Boots Riley as his “house band,” scoring his film Sorry to Bother You (2018), his series I’m a Virgo (2023) and his upcoming release I Love Boosters. They’ve also had to reckon in real time with their place in the music industry as white musicians liberally taking inspiration from Black and African musical traditions, sometimes to discomfiting results: One of the tracks from Tune-Yards’ 2018 album I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life is titled “Colonizer.”
Even if some of the work has aged more roughly than others — and the band would be the first to admit it — Tune-Yards’ music remains one-of-one. Earlier this month, Tune-Yards released its sixth (and arguably loveliest) album Better Dreaming and will start touring in June with an appearance at the UC Theatre in Berkeley June 13th and at the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park on June 15th.
Here’s Tune-Yards with an eclectic mix dedicated to the Bay. A note from Merrill and Nate:
Hurray for the Bay! It's impossible to put the whole in the Bay into a 10-song playlist but here are some of our favorites right now. Can't wait to play for our Bay Area family soon. Love Merrill and Nate
Tune-Yards will be performing in Berkeley on June 13 and Menlo Park on June 15. Stream or purchase their latest album, Better Dreaming.
