An Evening with Yo La Tengo

“Stuff Like That There, an album that combines original material, covers and remakes of some of their classic tracks, arrives over 30 years into Yo La Tengo’s prolific career. In its eclectic selection of songs, the album reveals each notable facet of the band, reminding fans of their talent for crafting intimately wrought numbers with powerful emotional heft. The trio pair a delicate cover of Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ with ‘All Your Secrets,’ a track from 2009’s Popular Songs, and both somehow contain the same introspective tone and quiet-handed instrumentation. Their version of The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” is interesting but not game changing, especially when juxtaposed with a strikingly lovely and carefully stripped-down rendition of ‘Before We Stopped to Think’ by Great Plains. Yo La Tengo’s power, as evidenced on their prior releases, is in the band’s ability to leave a lingering emotional effect in each note—and that’s on great display here. They have nothing to prove at this point, but Stuff Like That There still verifies what you already knew about Yo La Tengo’s legacy.” – Relix Magazine

Does it not sound like fun to work with old friends like guitarist Dave Schramm and engineer Gene Holder? It also seems like a good way to try something “McNew,” like James McNew on upright bass, an elemental contribution whose significance cannot be overstated. With Fakebook as template, Stuff Like That There is a record with ties to the past which contribute to the sound they make furthered by an affinity for the sounds they love. Somehow they compose the already composed by return. It’s clear-eyed. It’s clever and concealed.

Rare is the band that can cover themselves. Rarer is the band that would even think of it and rarer still is a band that would return to the conception and re-imagine its first breakthrough record. Someone may have read recently that old quote about how “in not knowing history one is doomed to repeat it.” There’s not another band that I know that is less doomed than Yo La Tengo.

Power up, people, this is stuff like that there.