Yo La Tengo are perhaps the last survivors of the powerful wave of American independent music that began in the early 80’s with REM’s college rock and slowly faded away with the dissolution of Sonic Youth. They are also because they release a new, enigmatic, tender album every few years without a long break. The band from Frank Sinatra’s birthplace, Hoboken in New Jersey, embodies the unfiltered energy of the indie myth like no other because each of their records resonates about the outside of the world as much as about the inside of the band.
Like a show of strength
The fact that Yo La Tengo are looking for their own shadow space between destructive feedback orgies and delightful pop melodies has always prevented them from being successful with large audiences. But Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew weren’t looking for him either, as at least the ingeniously silly refusal video for the single “Sugarcube” demonstrates (for which there is now an illuminating director’s cut dug out of the archive). On the other hand, their foaming sound was never intended to be as open in all directions as on “I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One”. The purest consistency, the complete teaching so to speak.
Think of the overly long record as a single demonstration of strength. Even the recordings are an effort without a goal. Endless sessions – and in the end the decision for a heterogeneous collection of sound pastiches mainly because the krautrock monster “Spec Bebop” somehow had to be born. Each of the musicians, meanwhile, gets room to shine, which would hardly have been possible without the brute energy of the eclectic predecessor, “Electr-O-Pura”. The tender “Stockholm Syndrome” belongs entirely to the bassist, in the driving “Autumn Sweater” the drums are like falling bombs, and there are parts singing like Lou Reed with the Velvet Underground and with the Beach Boys. Or as if both were mixed together, appropriately with a cover of the surfer band (“Little Honda”).
An act of love
And how is “Spec Bebop” to be understood? As a buzzing migraine attack, as Wilco later set it to music with “Less Than You Think”. The almost uncountable references point far away or deep into the band’s work. Deeper Into Movies’ violent gurgling is simultaneously a nod to film critic Pauline Kael, Sonic Youth, David Bowiev’s “Starman” and My Bloody Valentine. The latter have left their mark here in numerous songs. In addition, Yo La Tengo grope for the country swabs of their early years, in the instrumental nature poem “Green Arrow”, which is linked to Neil Young, or in the melancholic murmur of “One PM Again”.
One might ask a psychoanalyst whether in a formation with a married couple everything is about connection and constant new beginnings, for example through the electrification of different genres – here in addition to the already mentioned bossa nova, psychedelic folk, trip hop and avant-garde jazz. It also fits with the numerous cover versions that Yo La Tengo have recorded that they reach out to music history to make the foreign their own. An act of love. The remix of the 25th anniversary edition focuses more on rhythm and groove, with Kaplan whispering more audibly than on the first release. On top of that, there are the unobtrusive Peel Sessions and new mixed versions of “Autumn Sweater” by someone else.
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