The sixth studio album from Oakland-based duo Tune-Yards, Better Dreaming (out now via 4AD) serves as both a battlecry for focus in a chaotic world and a bold statement of creative freedom.

When asked what “better dreaming” means to her, vocalist Merrill Garbus points to the influence of Black feminist thinkers Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Adrienne Maree Brown, and Autumn Brown, who’ve posited extensively about the necessity of imagining and writing our future, specifically with a Black feminist gaze.

The future she imagines in Better Dreaming breaks free from what is and enters the realm of what could be. It’s a future where she, as a white, upper-middle-class cis woman, is not the only character. It’s a story where everyone will be considered.

Over the past two decades, the group’s signature

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