Category: Yo La Tengo

Pass The Hatchet :: On Yo La Tengo’s Guitar Sculptures

Posted on

When Yo La Tengo shifts into “guitar sculpture” mode, you’d be forgiven for thinking the idea is simply to make as much noise as possible. But closer inspection reveals Alexander Calder-like complexity, a commitment to movement and grace. The band’s sculptures aren’t static objects made of hard materials like traditional sculpture, but instead are always shifting and moving. The following is a sampling—though not all—of Yo La Tengo in this zone. They are presented chronologically and unranked. After all, this isn’t Guitar Player magazine.

Yo La Tengo :: The Sounds of the Sounds of Science

Posted on

With a 78-minute runtime and only a single track not eclipsing the eight minutes, The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is an almost meditative aquatic soundscape created for a series of short films by avant-garde filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Specializing in underwater cinematography, the French director’s short films (ranging in dates from 1927-1982) were compiled by Criterion in a collection titled Science is Fiction, with eight of them receiving YLT scores to break the deep sea silence.

Yo La Tengo :: Idiot’s Delight with Vince Scelsa, WNEW, December 28, 1997

Posted on

Yo La Tengo are one of our greatest bands — but they’re particularly great on the radio. Who else would be able to expertly accompany Daniel Johnston via a telephone call-in? Or take off-the-cuff requests from listeners every year during WFMU’s pledge drive? This vintage WNEW broadcast is terrific, too, coming at the end of 1997, when YLT were winning hearts worldwide with I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One.

Yo La Tengo :: Deeper Into Deep Cuts

Posted on

Yo La Tengo’s latest LP, This Stupid World, is another in a long line of masterpieces — this is a band that’s been so good for so long that it’s easy to take them for granted. But let’s not do that. As a little celebration of YLT, we’ve put together a mix of deep cuts stretching from the late 1980s to somewhere close to the present day. They’ve got a lot of this kind of thing. There are b-sides, bonus tracks, covers, instrumentals, guest appearances, remixes, live cuts, film scores … even the rejected jingle for a Coke commercial.

Return To Hot Chicken :: James McNew Reveals The Secrets Of Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

Posted on

If you had to pick one album that encompasses the awesomely eclectic nature of Yo La Tengo’s vision, 1997’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is your best bet. It’s got it all (almost), careening from crunchy noise-pop to spacey ambient, from free-form experimentalism to delicate balladry, from homespun electronica to blown-out Beach Boys covers. Somehow, the band fits all these puzzle pieces together, creating a masterful whole. The double LP’s closer aside, this isn’t a little corner of the world, it’s an entire galaxy.