Yo La Tengo -‘Fade.’ (Matador)

I’ve been waiting for this album, as a fan, and I wasn’t disappointed. See, Yo La Tengo have now been around for decades rather than years, but every album still feels like a big deal. They may not play stadia or appear in gossip magazines, but the number of those in the know continues to grow with each album. This, by the way, is their thirteenth studio album.*

Listening to this for about the second or third time before writing this review, I tried to work out where Yo La Tengo fit in -if they need to – on the musical landscape of the last fifty years or so. Like Sonic Youth and Low -and I think they are musically the missing link between the two bands- they’re out of leftfield, uncompromising and yet a mesmerising act.

There’s not a whole heap of guitar abuse on this album, excpt for the final track ‘Before We Run.’ It’s an album comparable to many that they have produced, though the one that I find myself comparing it to most is 2003’s Summer Sun. That album finished with a faithful but heartfelt cover of Big STar’s ‘Take Care’ and I think there’s something of both Summer Sun‘s Sadness, and the Third/Sister Lovers Big Star album. Most strongly can this be felt on ‘Cornelia and Jane.’

So Yo La Tengo do it again. Like The Fall, always the same, always different. Like Wilco, they are trying to break your heart. And like Yo La Tengo, utterly distinctive and brilliant.

Fade is released on Matador on January 14.

Stream Fade over at Pitchfork.

*depending on who you ask and what you read. I’ve also read that this is their twelfth and their fourteenth, and even as a fan I’m not sure.

Yo La Tengo have announced that they will release their thirteenth studio album, Fade, on January 14. The first track to do the rounds is the gorgeous clsoing track ‘Before We Run’ which you can watch below:

The full tracklisting is as follows:

1. Ohm
2. Is That Enough
3. Well You Better
4. Paddle Forward
5. Stupid Things
6. I’ll Be Around
7. Cornelia and Jane
8. Two Trains
9. The Point of It
10. Before We Run

They will also be playing a handful of dates in the British Isles as part of a European tour:

March 20 2013 London – Barbican
March 21 – UK, Manchester – The Ritz
March 22 – UK, Glasgow – O2 ABC
March 23 – Ireland, Dublin – Vicar Street

Yo La Tengo – Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, June 6

This is the first night in the UK of Yo La Tengo’s Re-inventing The Wheel tour. The aim of these shows is that each show is show of two halves with no support act where anything goes-and the wheel has the final say. The wheel is spun, giving endless possibilities of what they might play in the first half, followed by a Yo La Tengo show in the second.

What struck me the last time I saw Yo La tengo live (Usher Hall in 2005, with Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, if anyone’s interested), was that they have a great collective sense of humour between the three members, Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan and James McNew. They crack jokes about what we might expect, and get a member of the audience on stage to spin the wheel. Will we get them performing the entire sit-com sketch (which hasn’t happened yet, on this tour, apparently) or…

We get Dump! Dump is the side project which James McNew has performed with over the years. The set starts with ‘Slow Down’ which is one of the more mellow numbers in this part of the set. While I’m not the authority on Yo La Tengo who can tell you everythign about each track…it doens’t matter. I’m just swept away, along with everyone else in the audience. My perosnal highlight is the re-working of Prince’s ‘The Beautiful Ones,’ originally on Purple Rain. Dump did, in fact, release an entire album of Prince covers, appropriately (if baitingly) entitled That Skinny Motherfucker With the High Voice?.

The second set is Yo La tengo – but being Yo La Tengo, it’s not just the same songs that they play every night. What is brought home is that Messrs. McNew and Kaplan are most definitely up there on a par with the likes of J Mascis and Thurston Moore in terms of the guitar-awesomeness stakes. After twenty minutes of ear drum buzz wonderfulness, thy take the pace right down and give us a frail and gorgeous ‘Tears Are In Your Eyes’ with Georgia on lead vocals.

YLT have always given the world a mixture of feedback madness and understood the beauty of the sugar-coated pop song. It’s great to hear ‘Beanbag Chair’ with Ira on piano (am I the only person who thinks this is like Ben Folds Five? In a good way, obviously!) and to hear the two worlds coming together in the song that got me into them in the first place, ‘Sugarcube.’ I leave with my ears ringing…

This was the first gig I’d been to since the birth of my son nearly three months ago, and it was an awesome ‘welcome back’ into the gig-going world. Long may Yo La Tengo flourish.

Yo La Tengo -‘Beanbag Chair.’ mp3

Hallelujah!

Yup, there is a new Yo La Tengo album on the way. And no, it’s not the Condo F*cks but as Yo La Tengo. The album is entitled Popular Songs and should be out in early September. Read about it here

The first release from the album is a rather fine song called ‘Periodically Double or Triple’ which changes rather impressively midway through it.

Yo La Tengo -‘Periodically Double Or Triple.’ mp3

Yo La Tengo website/Yo La Tengo myspace