Oakland, California-based duo tUnE-yArDs have shared a new song and animated video for “hold yourself,” off their just-announced fifth studio album, sketchy. The 11-track record, which includes last year’s single “nowhere, man,” arrives March 26 on 4AD.
“This song is about feeling really betrayed, by my parents’ generation, and at the same time, really seeing how we are betraying the future,” the band’s Merrill Garbus explains in a statement.
The new music was initially inspired by the Beastie Boys Book and Questlove’s Creative Quest and created with Merrill on drums and Nate Brennan on bass. “I started remembering that people come to us to be entertained, to move, to feel joy. And together, I think, we can wake up,” Garbus stated.
Check out “Hold Yourself” below.
tUnE-yArDs put out i can feel you creep into my private life in 2018, and composed the score for Boots Riley’s 2019 Sorry To Bother You film. Of the busy decade between 2009 — the year the band released its debut, Bird-Brains — and 2018, Merill stated, “We had really been non-stop hustling. And when we’re hustling, we’re complicit in all of the systems that I really don’t believe in.”
On sketchy., the band’s press material explains, Merrill balances self-inspection and reflection with bombastic rallying cries, reminiscent of the furious tones of early days tUnE-yArDs.
sketchy. tracklisting
- nowhere, man
- make it right.
- hypnotized
- homewrecker
- silence pt. 1 (when we say “we”)
- silence pt. 2 (who is “we”?)
- hold yourself.
- sometime
- under your lip
- my neighbor
- be not afraid.
To pre-order sketchy. click here.