360 records from 2000: 7. Yo la tengo: And then nothing turned itself inside out

Country: US
Artist: Trio
Career: recording since 1985
Language: English
Genre: Indie rock


In a year of mostly awful album covers, let’s examine the beautiful picture on Yo la tengo’s latest: nightfall, ordinary houses with ordinary lights behind the windows, ordinary cars parked in the driveway, ordinary trees around the lane, and in the right hand corner a guy coming home from work or coming back from the take-out place (he’s got his little bag in his hand anyway), suddenly distracted by a light coming from outside of the picture’s edge. He’s looking up, what the hell is this light?, but not threatened, he lets himself get taken up in the light willingly. The light is love, and the way love colours ordinary life is the theme of this album.

Do you feel uncomfortable with that theme, do you feel it’s not very rock’n’roll, then turn away, this is not a very rock’n’roll record. But, if you accept that a lot of people settle into long term relationships not just because society wants us too, but because it’s something people value, indeed, value more than most people value most things, and if that is so, surely valued emotions should be expressed, then you’ll feel right at home.

‘And then…’ is very much a double LP, not in the sprawling ‘White album’ tradition, but in the focused ‘Blonde on blonde’ tradition – a tradition that hasn’t had as many practitioners. Side four, the sidelong meditation, side three, the playful and up tempo side, side two, the ballad and most melodic side, side one, the side on which the ideas of the record find their sternest, most crystallized form (think ‘Pledging my time’ and ‘Visions of Johanna’, not ‘Rainy day women’). It’s all there on this album.

Broadly speaking there are two types of songs on here: the ballads, gorgeously unfolding chord patterns over which Georgia Hubley (usually) sings of heartbreak and mending hearts, seeking transcendence like a great country singer. Not that country singers would recognize this as country. It may not be from the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it’s got that pining sound. If you know the record, you know what I mean.

And then there are the grooves: eviscerated shoegaze constructions. Say what you will, but Ira Kaplan is just about the only guitarist who did anything interesting with the shoegaze template for the guitar player. On a lot of these grooves the guitar is all but abandoned (and that’s interesting too). Instead these sound like songs which have been pulled apart into the smallest constituent parts of the riff, and put back together using shards and loops, fragments of a beat, a two note organ pattern going back and forth, constantly suggesting movement, harmonic and melodic, but circling over themselves in a repetitive groove.

‘Night falls on Hoboken’, the ‘Sad eyed lady’ of this album combines the two, it begins a ballad, a beautifully still ballad, capturing that image on the album cover, then it slowly dissolves into a five note bass riff, while waves of abstract sound ebb and flow from Kaplan’s guitar, until it just fades into silence. As far as I can tell, it’s just the sound of the three musicians – drums, bass, guitar, vocal and backing vocal – stretched over 17 minutes, communicating in near stillness, varying tones and pitches and feelings in what is on the surface pure repetition. I won’t get into anything as corny as comparing it to a long term relationship, but it’s the heart of the record and it’s what the record is all about. Find in it what you will, there is a lot to be found;

At its best: Our way to fall, The crying of lot G, You can have it all, Tears are in your eyes, Cherry chapstick, Night falls on Hoboken