Three-quarters of the way through one of their finest albums, 1997โs I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, Yo La Tengo cut from the breezy bossa-nova of โCenter Of Gravityโ and move straight into โSpec Bebobโ, a borderline-unlistenable 10-minute jam between drums and distorted organ. Itโs a typical spin between extremes for a group who have often found it hard to keep things simple.
So far, the only moment on record where theyโve resisted the urge to demonstrate their full โ and admittedly thrilling โ range is 1990โs Fakebook, their mainly acoustic fourth album. With Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan joined by Dave Schramm on electric guitar and Al Greller on double bass, the record is still a low-key delight, a fan favourite more intimate and warm than anything else the group have produced.
Developed by Kaplan and Hubley during stripped-down radio sessions promoting the previous yearโs President Yo La Tengo album, Fakebook included adept covers of songs by the likes of Cat Stevens, John Cale and The Kinks, reworked versions of older YLT songs such as โBarnaby, Hardly Workingโ and a handful of brand new tracks, including the effortless, sublime opener โCanโt Forgetโ. A follow-up to the album, then โ a Fakebook 2, if you like โ is a surprising, though very welcome move for Yo La Tengo to make 25 years later.
Stuff Like That There mimics its forebear in nearly every way, welcoming back Dave Schramm on guitar, though this time alongside longtime YLT bassist James McNew. Throughout, Schrammโs playing is a delight, his electric guitar swathed in delay and tremolo on โDeeper Into Moviesโ, and his slide achingly quicksilver on a cover of Hank Williamsโ โIโm So Lonesome I Could Cryโ.
The gorgeous version of Great Plainsโ โBefore We Stopped To Thinkโ, sung by Kaplan, is a sure high-point, but the most affecting, heartbreaking songs on Stuff are all sung by Hubley, whose voice seems to have grown richer and more melancholy with each passing year of the last quarter-century. On the evidence of her performances here on Darlene McCreaโs country ballad โMy Heartโs Not In Itโ, Antietamโs stately โNaplesโ and especially โIโm So Lonesome I Could Cryโ, sheโs stealthily become one of Americaโs most quietly impressive vocalists. A hushed take on โDeeper Into Moviesโ, originally a fuzzy highlight of I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, even utilises the classic Yo La Tengo trick of having Kaplan and Hubley harmonise, except with the guitarist taking the higher part and Hubley the lower.
Of the two new songs, โRicketyโ is almost acoustic motorik โ on a more orthodox Yo La Tengo album, it would perhaps end up as a close relation of Summer Sunโs โLittle Eyesโ โ while โAwhileawayโ is a pretty, waltzing ballad that would have sat well on 2000โs tender And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out.
Not all of the songs work, however โ the bandโs take on The Cureโs โFriday Iโm In Loveโ sticks out as a little too predictable and rushed among its more subtle neighbours. Indeed, as seems to be the case with most sequels, Stuff Like That There canโt quite match up to Fakebook. For all the albumโs strengths, something โ novelty, most likely โ is often lost when a trick is repeated, no matter how successful it was the first time around.
Yet these are minor gripes โ on the majority of Stuff Like That There, Yo La Tengo are able to recapture the magic of those sessions a quarter of a century ago, and introduce us to some more underrated classics. Alone with its stylistic predecessor in their catalogue, Stuff is a comforting listen, startlingly consistent in mood and featuring some of Yo La Tengoโs โ and especially Georgia Hubleyโs โ most touching moments. Frankly, it would be churlish to refuse a second helping.
Q&A
Ira Kaplan
Why did you decide to revisit Fakebook as a concept after 25 years?
We often play acoustically and we do lots of covers anyway, so I think weโd circled around [the idea] and gotten kind of near it almost constantly. Then the idea came up and it felt right. We didnโt really question it much more deeply than that. But I think for a while we felt the need to establish that we were not that band, that even when we made Fakebook that was a side of us but not the whole band. Even at the time, Fakebook wasnโt a plan or a strategy, it just seemed to make sense in the moment.
How did you go about choosing the covers?
Thereโs a number that we have done fairly steadily over the years, then once we knew this was what we were gonna do, a bunch of new ideas just flooded into us โ The Parliaments song, the Darlene McCrea songโฆ We also did a Sun City Girls song that didnโt end up on the record.
Georgiaโs voice is getting richer as time goes on.
Very quickly it became apparent to all of us that we wanted her to sing more on this record than sheโs ever sung. I mean, sheโs definitely carrying the singing. With something like โNaplesโ, she did more than in the past to make sure she was singing in a key that she felt comfortable in โ we do it in a different key than Antietam did. In the first song, when I hear her sing โmy heartโs not in itโ, my heart just melts.
INTERVIEW: TOM PINNOCK
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