Sketchy.

It's her incisive songwriting that makes her fifth LP a treat. [Apr 2021, p.73]

Sketchy is a bold album in so many ways but it’s also incredibly, comfortingly Tune-Yards: High energy, offbeat movements, looped vocals, powerful cries, incredible rhythms, a belief that fighting for what is right is the only option. It’s life affirming.

tUnE-yArDs haven't sounded this infectious since Nikki Nack, and Sketchy. captures the inflection point where frustration becomes positive action in funky, happy, angry, and inspiring ways.

Sketchy is not that perfect marriage of progressive political messaging and musical pleasure – an elusive holy grail, that, or a contradiction in terms? – but it is a daring, fascinating and frequently very enjoyable attempt to square the circle.

Though unlikely to win over those who weren’t already fans, ‘sketchy.’ is a more mature offering than previous Tune-Yards records though still retains much of the tripped-out whimsy that first made them so infectious.

The record itself isn’t angry, fizzing instead with a creative fire. There’s a looseness and joy to songs like “Make It Right” and “Homewrecker”, rooted in the extended jam sessions in which Garbus and bassist Nate Brenner birthed the record, the bold lyrics an extension of that passion. [May 2021, p.32]

By opening up melodically as well as rhythmically, Garbus and Brenner better reveal the big heart at the centre of Tune-Yards. [May 2021, p.87]

‘Sketchy’ takes the best, feral pulses from tUnE-yArDs’ DIY material and the richest sounds of later records in its doubling down on societal crises. If Garbus was worried about finding inspiration, she needn’t have been.

Despite its name, there’s nothing ambiguous about Tune-Yards’ return. They’re back with bombast and the permission to take a breather if it all gets too much.

Tune-Yards continue to make meaningful and joyful art after the watershed moment of reckoning on their last album.

sketchy. may not be their out-and-out best work, but it’s proof that they still have the guts and the songwriting ability — as well as their ever-present, obvious earnestness and candor — to do what endeared their work to so many in the first place.

Tune-Yards are always going to be an acquired taste for some people, and while this album mixes the accessible with the avant-garde, there will probably be people who are left cold by the restless energy and sometimes overtly meandering melodies. There are more than enough moments on Sketchy though to show that Garbus and Bremmer can strike musical gold when they want to.