Formed by music critics and loved by music critics, to paraphrase Spinal Tap, as bands go there may well be “none more indie” than Yo La Tengo. This is well appreciated of course. Not for nothing did The Onion run it’s infamous headline “37 Record Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster” (a spoof that contained the spot-on quote: “It’s just a twisted mass of black-frame glasses and ironic Girl Scouts T-shirts in there.”).
Yet, despite this rather nerdish reputation, there can be few bands on the US underground who have been quite so consistently playful or heartwarming – a fact that this three disc 18-year retrospective bears testament.
Essentially mixing up different combinations of all the music that they loved as fans (a bit of surf rock, some bossa nova, The Shaggs, The Velvets, free jazz) husband and wife duo of Ira Kaplin and Georgia Hubley plus, since 1992, James McNew, have ploughed an increasingly sophisticated furrow that finally resulted in the bona fide indie rock masterpieces “I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One” (1997) and “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out” (2000). Looking back, perhaps Yo La Tengo’s biggest strength is that, even though they became consummate sonic perfectionists, they never forgot the skill (and the thrill) of how to play like amateurs.
This strength is evident over the course of the non-chronologically arranged “Prisoners Of Love”. Never ones for using three chords when two will do, the Tengo prove themselves masters of texture and feel over dexterity and professionalism. Musically-speaking, there really isn’t an awful lot of difference between 1985’s “The River Of Water” and 2003’s “Season Of The Shark”. Certainly, they could easily sit side-by-side on the same album, which is saying something when you think a band like R.E.M. are their near contemporaries.
For this reason, picking individual moments from a 26-track collection (42-track if you purchase the bonus set with extra outtakes and rarities CD) becomes slightly problematic. In fact, leaving aside such recent glories as “You Can Have It All” and the heartbreaking “Tears Are In Your Eyes”, perhaps most impressive is how the band’s earlier material stands up, with “Barnaby, Hardly Working” (1989), “Drug Test” (1991) and “Big Day Coming” (1993) sounding remarkably contemporary.
The same is true of the outtakes CD which is a veritable feast of hard-to-find gems including “Pencil Test” and “Almost True” (previously unreleased, but perhaps among their finest songs) and an ambient beatbox remix of “Autumn Sweater” by Kevin Shields. As with their live set, the cover of Sun Ra’s “Nuclear War” might be the only moment that palls, although mercifully this version only goes on for around eight minutes.
Essentially though, this is a great entry level collection to one of the US’s most important underground bands – with a budget price tag only upping it’s ante as a must-have purchase. Whether they can rack up another 20 years at this quality is another to question, but a world without Yo La Tengo would be and would have been unimaginable.
by Adam Webb