I Yo La Tengo

New Jersey indie rockers Yo La Tengo had already been slowly growing into their sound for over a decade by the 1997 release of their revelational eighth album, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. Their guitar-based pop was steadily finding its legs before this, as the band moved toward increasingly dreamy productions on albums like Painful and Electr-O-Pura. The 16 tracks that made up the ambitious and epic I Can Hear the Heart found the group stretching out their whispery vocals and deceptively straightforward pop approach to encompass a variety of unexpected styles. This meant softly wandering guitars and steadfast drums twisted out of their indie rock trappings and morphed into adventurous Krautrock jams like "Spec Bebop," haunting, harmony-driven psych-folk like "We're an American Band," and even a playfully naive take on bossa nova with "Center of Gravity." As for the blissed-out melodic noise pop Yo La Tengo had been working on for the majority of their existence, this was one of the band's finest hours.

It's encouraging that nearly four decades into one of the most impressive careers in indie rock, Yo La Tengo are still finding new ways of doing things. On 2018's There's A Riot Going On, the band upended their usual process of writing material and then re-creating it in the studio by setting up recording gear in their rehearsal space and capturing their music in a freer and more spontaneous manner. For that album, YLT handed the tracks over to John McEntire (of Tortoise and the Sea and Cake) for mixing, but 2023's This Stupid World sees them cutting out the last middleman in their process – this time, the band mixed the tracks themselves, and for the first time they've made an album with essentially no outside input.

Yo La Tengo - Extra Painful (2014) {2CD 30th Anniversary Matador OLE 1063-2 rec 1993}
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© 1993, 2014 Matador Records | OLE 1063-2
Rock / Indie Rock

This year (2014) marks Yo La Tengo’s 30th anniversary, and they’re celebrating it by reissuing their sixth album, Painful, released nearly a decade into their career. The cardigan-cozy sound of the record effectively established Yo La Tengo as indie rock’s great romantics, and featured a couple of significant firsts for the trio.

Yo La Tengo - President Yo La Tengo + New Wave Hot Dogs (1993) {City Slang 04925-27 rec 1987, 1989}
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© 1987, 1989, 1993 City Slang / Yo La Tengo | 04925-27
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

Two records now available as a single CD, these really show off Yo La Tengo's ability to create musical extremes. New Wave Hot Dogs has the firm pop sense and strong songwriting of the debut, but President Yo La Tengo offers up a little more free-form skronk in the ten-minute live version of "The Evil That Men Do," a gloriously squalling, over-the-top crash-and-bash session which proves how liberating and fun sonic dissonance can be. Just in case you don't like that sort of thing, "Evil" also shows up as a straight-ahead folk-rock track. This is a great collection of material that, as well as anything else they have recorded, gets to the heart of what makes this band tick.

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000) {2CD Deluxe Edition Matador ALESCD 2028}
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© 2000 Matador Records | ALESCD 2028
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

After years as one of indie rock's standard-bearing groups, Yo La Tengo surpasses itself with And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. A culturally literate, emotionally rich album, on songs like "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House," "The Crying of Lot G," and "The Last Days of Disco," it alludes to The Simpsons, enigmatic author Thomas Pynchon and independent films while exploring the comforting, confining, complex aspects of relationships. "Our Way to Fall" sets Ira Kaplan's recollection of falling in love to a dreamy, down-to-earth backdrop of gently brushed drums, luminous organs and vibes; "The Crying of Lot G" transforms the syrupy sweetness of '50s ballads into a monologue about a relationship's shortcomings.

Yo La Tengo - Stuff Like That There (2015) {Matador OLE-1079-2}
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© 2015 Matador Records | OLE 1079-2
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

These days, every band seems eager to honor the anniversary of one of its landmark albums, usually in the form of a concert tour or an expanded reissue, and even Yo La Tengo have gotten into the act – a quarter century after they released their endlessly charming 1990 LP Fakebook, in which they covered a handful of their favorite songs and reworked a few of their own numbers in semi-acoustic fashion, YLT have recorded what amounts to a sequel, 2015's Stuff Like That There. Just like a sequel to a 1980s horror movie, Stuff Like That There follows the template of the original as closely as possible – there are two new songs, three remakes from the YLT back catalog, and nine covers, which range from the instantly recognizable (Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," inspired by Al Green's version) to the thoroughly obscure (unless you're a Hoboken pop obsessive or a James McNew completist, "Automatic Doom" by the Special Pillows is probably not on your hit parade).

Yo La Tengo - Fade (2013) {Matador OLE 994-2}
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© 2013 Matador Records | OLE 994-2
Rock / Indie Rock / Alternative / Dream Pop

At album number 13, Yo La Tengo are an institution unto themselves, having perfected their craft of slow-burning, unassumingly insular indie rock in incremental baby steps since their formation in 1984. Almost three decades of building a language of wistfully melodic guitar rock without becoming redundant is no small feat, and Fade rises to the unique challenge by striking a middle ground between new territory and recalling YLT's finest hours. Fade is the first album for the band not recorded with producer Roger Moutenot, who had worked with the group on everything they put to tape since their 1993 breakthrough, Painful.