Yo La Tengo, This Stupid World ★★★★☆
Nearly 40 years have passed since Yo La Tengo formed in Hoboken, New Jersey. The lineup has shifted, just as their sound has segued into new shapes, but the band remains consistently experimental with an indie rock grounding that is unaffected by trends.
Vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Ira Kaplan, percussionist and pianist Georgia Hubley, and bassist James McNew sound as fresh and relevant now as they ever have. With their 17th album This Stupid World, they have confidently taken the reins as producers and mixers for the first time, keeping the whole exploratory, intimate collection of songs entirely within their creative control.
A rancorous drone underlies the wiry dance of guitar and basslines on opener Sinatra Drive Breakdown. Kaplan and Hubley harmonise, twining in and out of sync. It’s a hypnotic sonic dissonance, warped through Kaplan’s kaleidoscope lens. On Fallout, fuzz undercuts the swirling, brassy guitar rhythms that appear then fade like refractions of light.
Somewhere between the momentary clarity of a beat, a poetic lyrical statement or the beautiful, muscular bassline and the moody modulations of intermingled percussion, guitar, reverb and layered melodies, there is a beating heart, a ticking clock. The inevitability of time passing, the inescapable fate of ageing, and the cycle of life and death are somehow softened through the trance-like build of sound. Music is a balm for Yo La Tengo and their listeners, too: both an escape from the ordinary frays of the everyday, and a place to question our purpose, our humanity and our shared fates.
There’s a nostalgic, amber sweetness to the strummy Aselestine which centres Hubley’s dreamy, gentle delivery and this song, like many on This Stupid World, delivers a vague echo of dusty, country tunes and the swell and ebb of spiritual chants: mantras repeated, a tide of voices and sound in celebration of life.
We’ve witnessed the snarled warp and weft of young Yo La Tengo transform into earthier, lusher textures. There’s a lot to dive into here, but – of course – not all the time in the world. Cat Woods
