| Artist |
tUnE-yArDs |
| Album Title: |
Sketchy. |
| Album Cover: |
 |
| Primary Genre |
Alternative & Punk: Indie |
| Format |
Vinyl |
| Released |
03/26/2021 |
| Label |
4AD |
| Catalog No |
4AD0309LP |
| Bar Code No |
1 91400 03090 9 |
| Packaging |
LP Sleeve |
| Tracks |
| A1.
|
Nowhere, Man (3:29)
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| A2.
|
Make it Right. (2:56)
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| A3.
|
Hypnotized (4:30)
|
| A4.
|
Homewrecker (3:17)
|
| A5.
|
Silence Pt. 1 (When We Say "We") (3:25)
|
| A6.
|
Silence Pt. 2 (Who is "We"?) (1:00)
|
| B1.
|
Hold Yourself. (4:50)
|
| B2.
|
Sometime (2:53)
|
| B3.
|
Under Your Lip (2:49)
|
| B4.
|
My Neighbor (3:26)
|
| B5.
|
Be Not Afraid. (4:26)
|
|
| Date Acquired |
12/17/2021 |
| Personal Rating |
 |
| Acquired from |
4AD |
| Purchase Price |
19.00 |
Web Links |
All Music Guide Entry:
Discogs Entry:
MusicBrainz entry:
Wikipedia Entry: |
Notes |
Notes:
With die-cut jacket and printed inner sleeve. Limited quantities came bundled with signed print of the cover art (see photo.) whilst stocks lasted from the 4AD store.
All songs recorded at BotCave (Oakland, CA) by Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner, except:
Tunde Olaniran's vocals recorded by Stephen Saputo. Toni Hartley and Patricia Preware's vocals recorded by themselves, and Matt Nelson's sax recorded himself.
All songs written by Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner and published by Garbus The Owl (ASCAP) and Naytronix Media (BMI), administered by Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Credits:
Artwork, Layout – Mike Zimmerman
Lacquer Cut By – JN-H
Mastered By – Joe LaPorta
Mixed By – Eli Crews
Photography By [Plant] – Merrill Garbus
Photography By [Poeple] – Pooneh Ghana
Recorded By – Merrill Garbus, Nate Brenner
Written-By – Merrill Garbus, Nate Brenner
Companies, etc.:
Lacquer Cut At – Sterling Sound
Mixed At – Spillway Sound
Mastered At – Sterling Sound
Published By – Garbus The Owl
Published By – Naytronix Media
Recorded At – BotCave
Exclusive Retailer – 4AD
Barcode and other Identifiers:
Barcode (On sticker): 1 91400 03090 9
Matrix / Runout (Etched Side A): 4AD0309LP-A JN-H STERLING
Matrix / Runout (Etched Side B): 4AD0309LP-B JN-H STERLING
Rights Society: ASCAP
Rights Society: BMI
Barcode (On rear jacket): 1 91400 03091 6
|
|
| Reviews |
All Music Guide Review by Heather Phares:
On i can feel you creep into my private life, tUnE-yArDs' Merrill Garbus interrogated her own choices as thoroughly as she questioned society at large on W H O K I L L and Nikki Nack. After taking stock on that album, on Sketchy. she and Nate Brenner take charge. The duo's fifth full-length is about having the bravery and strength to confront old beliefs and old fears on a personal and global scale. It's not new territory for tUnE-yArDs, but it bears repeating, especially since the late 2010s and early 2020s brought the issues they railed against years earlier to a head. Garbus and Brenner reinforce these messages without rehashing them, and they spend as much time reconnecting with the primal force of their music as they do refining it. Casting aside much of private life's electronic leanings and restraint, Sketchy. sounds unbridled even by tUnE-yArDs' standards. On "homewrecker," a metallic beat slinks its way through a jungle of dense sonics, leading to a clearing of vocal harmonies that soon take on a helium pitch; on "be not afraid.," foreboding drones culminate in a piercing shriek. Amidst these turbulent sonics, Brenner and Garbus hide triumphs and epiphanies like Easter eggs. The song "hold yourself," an inspired expression of how older generations inevitably stifle the ones that follow them, mirrors its swings between anger and liberation with alternately storming and beaming brass. Along with joining seemingly improbable sounds into bracingly noisy pop, confrontation is one of Garbus' superpowers, and she uses it expertly on Sketchy. "I'm just lookin' for somethin' to make me mad/Nothing personal, just sick of being sad," she sings on "under your lip," one of the album's finest examples of how she turns struggles into anthems. That goes double for "nowhere, man," which gives the impression that she turns over every rock and shines the light in every corner to root out injustice and hypocrisy. Though she and Brenner never sound less than genuine on expressions of solidarity like "silence, pt. 1," several of Sketchy.'s standouts are more personal. Imagining love as a healing bond, "hypnotized" instantly makes itself known as one of tUnE-yArDs' finest songs with its bear hug-sized harmonies. On "my neighbor," a timeless and timely fable of how fear and jealousy can destroy the best of us, the duo bring things down to a whisper that resounds as strongly as the album's boldest moments. 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.
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| Cover 1 |
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| Cover 2 |
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| Cover 3 |
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| Cover 4 |
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| Cover 5 |
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| Cover 6 |
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| Cover 7 |
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