Yo La Tengo
Artist: Yo La Tengo
Genre(s):
Rock
Other
Indie
Discography:
Today Is the Day
Year: 2003
Tracks: 6
Summer Sun
Year: 2003
Tracks: 14
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Year: 2003
Tracks: 13
The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science
Year: 2002
Tracks: 8
Nuclear War EP
Year: 2002
Tracks: 4
Sunday - Dec. 16, 2001
Year: 2001
Tracks: 25
Danelectro
Year: 2000
Tracks: 6
Little Honda EP
Year: 1998
Tracks: 8
Painful
Year: 1997
Tracks: 11
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (CD Extra)
Year: 1997
Tracks: 4
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
Year: 1997
Tracks: 16
Ride the Tiger
Year: 1996
Tracks: 15
President Yo La Tengo: New Wave Hot Dogs
Year: 1996
Tracks: 20
Electr-O-Pura
Year: 1995
Tracks: 14
Fakebook
Year: 1994
Tracks: 16
That Is Yo La Tengo
Year: 1991
Tracks: 5
May I Sing with Me
Year: 1991
Tracks: 11
President Yo La Tengo - New Wave Hotdogs
Year: 1989
Tracks: 20
Other
Year:
Tracks: 3
Little Honda
Year:
Tracks: 8
Yo La Tengo was in many respects the quintessential critics' ring: in addition to its adventuresome eclectic method, noncompliant independence, and uneasy creative dream -- threesome qualities that well-nigh guarantee music press acclaim -- the group's frontman, Ira Kaplan, even tenured as a stone scribbler prior to finding winner as a performing artist. So oft compared to the Velvet Underground that they even depicted the legendary radical in the 1996 moving-picture show I Shot Andy Warhol, the Hoboken, NJ-based unit explored the extremes of feedback-driven noise stone and sweet melodious pop, blending its work with equalise parts scholarly composure and fannish enthusiasm. Prolific and quicksilver, Yo La Tengo at last transcended its myriad influences to settle itself as a dear institution of the indie community.
The core of Yo La Tengo (Spanish for the outfielder's shout of "I've got it!") was comprised of singer/guitarist Kaplan and his married woman, drummer/vocalist Georgia Hubley. After forming the band in 1984, they situated an advertising seeking early musicians to round out the lineup, requesting applicants world Health Organization shared out their philia for the Soft Boys, Mission of Burma, and Arthur Lee's Love. A telephone number of bassists and pencil lead guitarists passed through the band's roster during its formative long time, just later on bow in late 1985 with the single "The River of Water," backed by a cover of Love's "A House Is Not a Motel," Yo La Tengo's rank appeared to stabilise with the additions of guitar player Dave Schramm and bassist Mike Lewis prior to the sessions for 1986's full-length roots pop debut, Ride the Tiger, produced by former Mission of Burma bassist Clint Conley.
Nonetheless, both Schramm and Lewis exited in the stir up of the record's release, going Kaplan to feign pencil lead guitar duties. Bassist Stephan Wichnewski signed on for 1987's Unexampled Wave Hot Dogs, a more than assured pleasure trip that brought the group's Velvet Underground obsession to the stem via a hatch of the early VU composition "It's Alright (The Way That You Live)." Not only did Kaplan's self-examining, half-spoken vocals and buzzing guitar work closely recall Lou Reed, just Hubley's steady-going drumming and breathy backup turns simultaneously conjured memories of vintage Maureen Tucker. Even better was 1989's President Yo La Tengo, recorded with producer and invitee bassist Gene Holder; curtain raising with the droning squalls of the stunning "Barnaby, Hardly Working," the record spotlighted the group's transonic schizophrenic disorder by including deuce Jekyll-and-Hyde versions of the track "The Evil That Men Do" -- one a gorgeous instrumental, the other a sulfurous feedback freakout.
Schramm returned to the fold for 1990's Fakebook, a remarkable acoustic folk-pop journey through Kaplan's record aggregation and a practical family tree of Yo La Tengo reference points. A toppingly subdued aggregation of covers ranging from disregarded nuggets (the Kinks' "OK U.S.A.," the Flamin' Groovies' "You Tore Me Down," Gene Clark's "Tested So Hard") to inviolable obscurities (Rex Garvin & the Mighty Cravers' "Emulsified," the Escorts' "The One to Cry," the Scene Is Now's "Lily-livered Sarong"), Fakebook also included a smattering of salient newfangled originals as well as luminous retakes of the old record's "Barnaby, Hardly Working" and Raw Wave Hot Dogs' "Did I Tell You?" The superb That Is Yo La Tengo EP previewed 1992's May I Sing With Me, the number 1 endeavour to characteristic permanent bassist James McNew (at one time of Christmas). A hark back to noise typified by the hot-wired nine-minute feedback saga "Mushroom Cloud of Hiss," the record balanced out its extremist tendencies with the casual sidestep into musical beauty ("Detouring America With Horns") and infectious indie pop ("Inverted").
A move to the Matador label predated the release of 1993's Painful, another winner informed by the atmospheric static of shoegazer drones and dream pop. Bookended by radically opposed renditions of the track "Big Day Coming" -- the number 1 an organ-driven mood piece, the other an edgy guitar expedition -- the record pushed Yo La Tengo in a concourse of new directions, significantly expanding the trio's palette of sounds and textures. Released in 1995, Electr-O-Pura continued the patterned advance, zigzagging from dead-on British Invasion re-creations (the sparkling "Uncle Tom Courtenay") to shimmering folk (the Hubley-sung "Pablo and Andrea") to brace transonic experimentation ("Decora"). After 1996's Flair + Love Equals Yo La Tengo, a two-disc compendium of B-sides, compilation tracks, rare singles, and unreleased material, the trinity resurfaced in the springtime of 1997 with I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One; And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out followed in early 2000.
The grouping too performed a three-night erolia minutilla as the backing band for Ray Davies on his 2000 U.S. go, and in 2002 released The Sounds of the Sounds of Science, a soundtrack to the undersea documentaries of French film maker Jean Painleve. That fall, they released the Atomic War individual, which featured several versions of Sun Ra's epic, and that wintertime performed their second yearbook Hanukkahpalooza, an eight-night musical festival at Hoboken, NJ's Maxwell's, which also featured a special limited edition EP of Christmas songs. Yo La Tengo released Summer Sun in spring 2003, and that yr Georgia Hubley performed in Mirror Man, an avant-garde stone opera by Pere Ubu's David Thomas.
In 2005, Matador Records nonrecreational homage to the band's 20th year as recording artists with the career-spanning compilations Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs: 1985-2003 and A Smattering of Outtakes and Rarities 1986-2003. The stripe returned the undermentioned yr with the stiff all-new album I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
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