Indie rock band Yo La Tengo releases “Fade”
Yo La Tengo released a new album, “Fade.”
By Thomas Neufeld, Staff Writer
The new Yo La Tengo album, “Fade,” is only 45 minutes long. This may come as a surprise, as their albums in recent years have often lasted over 70 minutes, where gorgeous lounge pop sits next to extended organ drone jams, Motown vamps and hushed ballads next to gales of feedback. Put simply, they are usually very loud or very quiet. It’s tough not to describe their music as comforting, what with Ira and Georgia Kaplan rarely singing above whisper levels despite the occasional maelstrom going on around them. “Fade,” for the most part, leans more towards the quiet end of the Yo La Tengo spectrum, those gauzy, almost imperceptibly moving numbers that seem suspended in air. That’s not a problem.
The first track, “Ohm,” is one of their finest moments. It is seven minutes of one chord played by two guitars, a dobro sample and an utterly bewitching vocal melody. As the song progresses, the track slowly becomes submerged by more and more layers of guitar are added. It features Kaplan’s only extended guitar freakout of the album, but his atonal runs don’t scream, they bubble and creak out of the drone. By the end, it’s impossible to tell how many guitars are playing as the song slowly fades out.
Ira has become one of the great guitarists of modern times, and to hear him solo is to hear a man possessed. Often his solos sound as if a late Coltrane solo was somehow transcribed for electric guitar, capturing that sense of absolute freedom. His use of feedback is one of Yo La Tengo’s stock weapons, but they recognize both its aggressive and beautiful qualities, how it can sound like the apocalypse or a lullaby. Waves of feedback saturate the mix of “Paddle Forward,” the best straightforward pop songs of the album, but they’re held at bay by the gorgeous harmonies, like listening to the roar of the ocean from another room. “Is That Enough?” shows the power of their use of ostensibly incongruent styles, standard YLT fuzz-pop meeting a lustrous, nearly discofied string arrangement. Centerpiece “Stupid Things” is another highlight, its percolating loops and underwater Krautrock feel slowly morphing into one of the loveliest songs on the record.
For some listeners, the sequencing may leave something to be desired; the first five songs make up the vast bulk of the uptempo, louder material, before the album sinks into a 4-song stretch of acoustic ballads, woozy drum machines and murmured singing. Given proper attention, the songs reveal themselves further; it’s easy to become lost in their hushed beauty. It’s still refreshing when “Before We Run” finishes the album with pounding drums and a wonderfully regal-sounding horn and string arrangement. Georgia stops singing halfway through and just lets the groove continue for three more minutes. The song seems to end, only to start back up again and then fades. It’s as if it’ll continue infinitely. Yo La Tengo have been with us 30 years. Let’s hope they stay some more.
