Merrill Garbus is the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist behind experimental indie-pop project Tune-Yards. Brought up in Connecticut, Garbus worked as a puppeteer in Vermont before relocating to Montreal, where she played ukulele in the band Sister Suvi. In 2009, Garbus recorded her first album as Tune-Yards, titled Bird-Brains, using a Dictaphone and music program GarageBand. Tune-Yards were later signed to 4AD and the album released worldwide. Garbus was joined by bass player and co-writer Nate Brenner shortly after and, in 2011, Tune-Yards released a second album, titled Whokill. Following a series of headline shows and a stint supporting Arcade Fire in April this year, Tune-Yards' most recent full-length record, Nikki Nack, was released in May and they play Electric Brixton 3-4 September.
TV: So You Think YouCan Dance
I started rewatching So You Think You Can Dance, the dance competition on Fox, because Sonya Tayeh, one of the choreographers on the show, is the girlfriend of our singer Jo Lampert. It feels like it should be a guilty pleasure because it has that glossy, Hollywood vibe to it but I've started really understanding the depth of what they're actually doing. The choreography is phenomenal. People audition in different cities around the US and there are these incredible dancers, truly talented people and artists. When making my last album, I was trying to dance more. I think that dance and expression through movement is kind of unexplored in the world of pop music, in that there's a lot of "pop dancing", or dancing based on hip-hop, but real contemporary dance seems like it's not often used in shows.
Music: Gaetjen-ens
I have a friend who runs an organisation called Carrefour Collaborative, raising money for Haitian artists to make records or music videos, or whatever they need to further their art. Obviously resources are slim for everything in Haiti. It helped to make Gaetjen-ens first single, which is called Men Fanm Nan, and it's just an awesome song. She's an amazing MC… Her music sounds like hip-hop with a nasty Creole flair. I think they're trying to raise money now for her to do a video. I've been really inspired by the people that I know working in different parts of the world, who'll say: "Here's a mix from Nigeria" or: "Check out this Haitian artist." I feel lucky to have a global awareness of what's going on.
Film: Masculin Féminin
This is a movie that I always come back to in my head; it's nestled in there somewhere. It's a Jean-Luc Godard film and it always struck me as one that broke the rules of what film can do. It's basically a mod movie where a girl and a guy go on crazy adventures. It's Paris, it's the 60s and they get into trouble – I think that's the gist of it. I first saw Masculin Féminin when I was at Smith College in Massachusetts, where they had a film library. You would check out the film, go into a booth and watch it. That was before so many films were accessible online. There was this wonderful feeling about taking a VHS tape into this room and having to sit there alone with it, without any other distractions, for a couple of hours.
Festival: Pohoda
We just played at Pohoda. I'd never heard of it before. It's a festival that's gone on since 1997 in Slovakia. When we got to Trenčín, in Slovakia, it was like this beautiful, gorgeous, open field with rolling hills in the distance. Onstage, right before us, there was a Slovakian artist who combined a whole bunch of Slovakian folk tunes and traditional music with cabaret-style songs. Everyone there was so proud of that festival and there were really kind, open audiences. They treated us so well, backstage was wonderful: we had a huge smorgasbord of Slovakian food, it was amazing. I feel like telling the world about it.
Book: The BFG by Roald Dahl
This has come back into my life since recognising how influential it was when I was a kid. I would go to the library and just hang out in the Roald Dahl section, and get into trouble for reading the adult short stories. The BFG had this orphaned character and, for whatever reason (I did have two parents and a sister), that sense of aloneness really appealed to me. I think it's appealing to a lot of kids. Dahl's use of language with things such as snozzcumbers – which has so much to do with the sound of the word and what that evokes – has certainly influenced my lyric writing. All that stuff which I unknowingly had in the back of my brain from when I was eight years old is now helping me make a living.
Restaurant: Gracias-Madre
Gracias-Madre is a vegan Mexican restaurant in San Francisco. Everything is made with love; it's indicative of the food scene in San Francisco, using local ingredients and environmentally responsible foods. It's an enchanting and admirable way of eating. When I was there, I think I had tamales stuffed with squash blossoms – something amazing like that – and it came with simple steamed kale and black beans. They have this "cheese" made with cashews that really tastes like that white cheese that they use in a lot of Mexican food, but it's all vegan. Lately, I've been trying not to eat grain, so as I was thinking: "Oh my gosh I want to go there and eat" but maybe it's just that I'm dreaming of corn.
