Tengo Stupid

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 - Fade (2013) {Matador OLE 994-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 294 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 107 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 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.

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Beat The Boots, Vol II (1992) {Rhino R2 71017~023 rec 1968-1978}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.07 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 899 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 312 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1968-78, 1992 Rhino / FOO-EEE | R2 71017~023
Rock / Experimental Rock / Art Rock

This is the second (and final) bootleg-gone-legit box that was actually sanctioned by Frank Zappa. But rather than go to the expense and time to use better sources – which the artist presumably had access to – he simply ripped off the illicit recordings that had been doing the same to him for decades. And voila, Beat the Boots was born. Zappa enlisted Rhino Records to manufacture and distribute the anthologies – which were packaged to appear as if the contents were being sold in a low budget cardboard box. However once inside Beat the Boots!, Vol. 2 (1992), consumers were treated to a full LP jacket-sized 40-page memorabilia scrapbook, a black felt beret and a red pin/badge bearing the hammer-in-fist artwork emblazoned on it.