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YO LA TENGO

Cover of Strange But True - 2025 Reissue by Jad Fair & Yo La Tengo.

Jad Fair & Yo La Tengo

Strange But True - 2025 Reissue

Joyful Noise Recordings

    In the ’90s, Jad Fair had five favorite bands and songwriters: Daniel Johnston, The Pastels, Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub, and Yo La Tengo. It’s a good list, sure, but what’s most remarkable about it is that, in the course of a dozen years or so, Fair made music with all of them in one form or another.

    Jad Fair has been prolific for half a century now, long before the Internet could create a simultaneous and seemingly eternal archive of everything someone with his predilections made. He’s been involved in several hundred titles, at least, many of them out-of-print on tiny labels that do not exist anymore. In fact, one of those collaborations that Fair made in the ’90s—'Strange But True', with Yo La Tengo—has been hard to find, despite its stateside release on October 20th 1998, by Matador Records.

    For the first time, the album is being reissued on vinyl by Joyful Noise and Bar/None.

    By the time Fair played a party with Yo La Tengo in the mid-’90s, they were all friends, fans, and collaborators, having worked on or released records together. When Fair suggested they all head into the studio, the trio bit. The result, 'Strange But True', is as wonderful, varied, and wild as some enormous lawn of native grasses. This collaborative album showcases the artists’ uncanny range, bringing us back to a time when indie rock was still free to be as weird and unruly as its makers wanted it to be.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Helpful Monkey Wallpapers Entire Home
    2. Texas Man Abducted By Aliens For Outer Space Joy Ride
    3. National Sports Association Hires Retired English Professor To Name New Wrestling Holds
    4. Dedicated Thespian Has Teeth Pulled To Play Newborn Baby In High School Play
    5. Three-Year-Old Genius Graduates High School At Top Of Her Class
    6. Embarrassed Teen Accidentally Uses Valuable Rare Postage Stamp
    7. Principal Punishes Students With Bad Impressions And Tired Jokes
    8. Retired Grocer Constructs Tiny Mount Rushmore Entirely Of Cheese
    9. X-Ray Reveals Doctor Left Wristwatch Inside Patient
    10. Clumsy Grandmother Serves Delicious Dessert By Mistake #2
    11. Retired Woman Starts New Career In Monkey Fashions
    12. Circus Strongman Runs For PTA President
    13. High School Shop Class Constructs Bicycle Built For 26
    14. Clumsy Grandmother Serves Delicious Dessert By Mistake #1
    15. Ohio Town Saved From Killer Bees By Hungry Vampire Bats
    16. Nevada Man Invents Piano With 21 Extra Keys
    17. Clever Chemist Makes Chewing Gum From Soap
    18. Minnesota Man Claims Monkey Bowled Perfect Game
    19. Ingenious Scientist Invents Car Of The Future
    20. Car Gears Stick In Reverse, Daring Driver Crosses Town Backwards
    21. Shocking Fashion Statement Terrorizes Town
    22. Feisty Millionaire Fills Potholes With Hundred-Dollar Bills

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    Cover of Old Joy by Yo La Tengo.

    Yo La Tengo

    Old Joy

    Mississippi Records

      “Sorrow is nothing but worn-out joy…”

      For the first time on vinyl, Yo La Tengo’s understated, lonesome score to Kelly Reichardt’s classic 'Old Joy'.

      Recorded in a single afternoon at YLT’s studio in Hoboken, 'Old Joy' is a drifting, improvisatory journey, born out of years-long friendship between the band and the film’s director.

      The six instrumental tracks, created in collaboration with legendary guitarist Smokey Hormel, carry that unmistakable YLT sound, but delivered in service of another great work of art. The music, like so much of Reichardt’s film work, is low-key yet arresting, stripped down to the essentials, warm and unpretentious. The record includes two variations on the beloved “Leaving Home” theme, released for the first time on vinyl after years traveling in YLT fan circles.

      This music is a balm, remarkably full of emotion despite (or maybe because of) its restraint and minimalism.

      Originally released on 'They Shoot, We Score', a CD compiling several of the band’s soundtracks, 'Old Joy' stands as a cohesive whole here, blooming and rewarding repeat listens.

      Sliding reverbed guitars, muted piano and percussion, the hum of an old amp - the blurry memory of an afternoon in the studio, or a short-lived road trip through the backwoods of Oregon.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Leaving Home
      2. Getting Lost
      3. Path To Springs
      4. Driving Home
      5. End Credits
      6. Leaving Home - Alternate Version

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      Cover of Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out - 33 1/3 by Elliott Simpson.

      Elliott Simpson

      Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out - 33 1/3

      Bloomsbury Academic USA

        Hailed as a “quiet masterpiece”upon release, Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out proposed a radical new future for rock music. Released at a time when the music industry was changing dramatically thanks to the rise of online file sharing, it suggested that the only way for a band to survive was to listen to themselves.

        A delicate and hushed album, its songs explore the quiet battles that take place every day and the beauty that can emerge from the ordinary. In many ways, this is reflective of the story of the band that made it – self-managed for most of their career and having maintained the same line-up since 1992, Yo La Tengo almost resemble a suburbs-based nuclear family.

        And Then Nothing… argues that great art does not come from suffering, but instead, steady, unglamorous work. It is an album that helped forge a new mythology for rock and roll: one not built on sex, drugs and debauchery, but instead the quiet lives of people living in peaceful suburban homes. From the nothingness of the everyday, something incredible can emerge.

        Table of Contents

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        Cover of Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo - 2025 Reissue by Yo La Tengo.

        Yo La Tengo

        Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo - 2025 Reissue

        Matador

          Back in print for the first time in over 20 years, the compilation assembles more than two hours of hard to find and unreleased Yo La Tengo music from 1988 – 1995.

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop
          2. Demons
          3. Fog Over Frisco
          4. Too Late
          5. Hanky Panky Nohow
          6. Something To Do
          7. Ultra-Powerful Short Wave Radio Picks Up Music From Venus
          8. Up To You
          9. Somebody's Baby
          10. Walking Away From You
          11. Artificial Heart
          12. Cast A Shadow
          13. I'm Set Free
          14. Barnaby, Hardly Working
          15. Some Kinda Fatigue
          16. Speeding Motorcycle
          17. Nutricia
          18. Her Grandmother's Gift
          19. From A Motel 6 # 2
          20. Gooseneck Problem
          21. Surfin' With The Shah
          22. Ecstasy Blues
          23. Too Much, Part 1
          24. Blitzkrieg Bop
          25. One Self: Fish Girl
          26. Enough
          27. Drum Solo
          28. From A Motel 6 # 1
          29. Too Much, Part 2
          30. Sunsquashed

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          Cover of This Stupid World by Yo La Tengo.

          Yo La Tengo

          This Stupid World

          Matador Records

            The most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in years. Times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else. In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers. In their latest effort, the first full-length in five years, This Stupid World was created all by themselves. And their time-tested judgment is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards, and nimble enough to make things new. At the base of nearly every track is the trio playing all at once, giving everything a right-now feel. There’s an immediacy to the music, as if the distance between the first pass and the final product has become more direct.

            Available on standard black vinyl, CD and on limited blue vinyl.

            STAFF COMMENTS

            Martin says: Yo La Tengo's newest outing takes all of their famous melodicism and folky melancholy and refines it perfectly into a distillation of everything that's made the band so great over the years. Brittle in parts, but retaining the intensity of their more driven excursions and wall of sound art-rock they do so well.

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Sinatra Drive Breakdown
            2. Fallout
            3. Tonight’s Episode
            4. Aselestine
            5. Until It Happens
            6. Apology Letter
            7. Brain Capers
            8. This Stupid World
            9. Miles Away

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            Cover of Electr-o-pura - Reissue by Yo La Tengo.

            Yo La Tengo

            Electr-o-pura - Reissue

            Matador

              Continuing with their ever-expanding Revisionist History series, Matador Records announce a 25th anniversary reissue of Yo La Tengo’s 1995 album Electr-o-pura. Now in a gatefold sleeve and cut from the original 58-minute master, the new reissue is pressed for the first time on two LPs to ensure the highest quality of audio the album has had on vinyl to date.

              On their seventh studio album, Yo La Tengo would further expand on the venturous songwriting established on their previous album Painful with stunning craft and a deepened exploration of contrasting textures, moods and atmospherics. Chock full with moments of pop gold like “Tom Courtenay,”melancholic ballads such as the heartbreaking “Pablo And Andrea,” and sweeping, feedback-laden jams like the show-stopping “Blue Line Swinger”, Electr-o-pura is a thrilling document of one of America’s most beloved bands hitting their creative stride and remains one of the most sublime records the band has released in their uninterrupted 36-year career.

              TRACK LISTING

              Decora
              Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)
              The Hour Grows Late
              Tom Courtenay
              False Ending
              Pablo And Andrea
              Paul Is Dead
              False Alarm
              The Ballad Of Red Buckets
              Don't Say A Word (Hot Chicken #2)
              (Straight Down To The) Bitter End
              My Heart's Reflection
              Attack On Love
              Blue Line Swinger

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              Cover of I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One by Yo La Tengo.

              Yo La Tengo

              I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

              Matador

                Sixty five plus minutes of breath-taking material recorded under smooth circumstances in lovely Nashville, TN. This one will without a doubt appeal to long time Yo La Tengo fans, considering the fact that this is their very best one yet. The really good thing, though, is that a lot of people who will buy this record will do so without knowing that it probably is the only TRULY GREAT record they will buy in their lives. Until the next one comes out, of course!!

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                Reduced Cover of There's A Riot Going On by Yo La Tengo.

                Yo La Tengo

                There's A Riot Going On

                Matador Records

                There's a riot going on. You don't need me, or Yo La Tengo, to tell you that. These are dark times, in our heads as much as in the streets. It's easy to lose contact with the ground, flying through endless banks of storm clouds day after day. Confusion and anxiety intrude into daily life and cause you to lose your compass. There are times that call for anthems, something to lift you out of your slump and put fire in your feet. And then there are times when what is indicated is a balm, a sound that will wrap around you and work out the knots in your neck.

                While there's a riot going on, Yo La Tengo will remind you what it's like to dream. The sound burbles and washes and flows and billows. If records were dedicated to the cardinal elements, this one would be water. There are shimmery hazes, spectral rumbles, a flash of backward masking, ghostly flamingos calling "shoo-bop shoo-bop." You are there. And even if your mind is not unclouded--shaken, misdirected, out of words and out of time--you can still float, ride the waves of an ocean deeper than your worries, above the sound and above the Sound.

                For Yo La Tengo this is a slow-motion action painting, and Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan, and James McNew did it all themselves, in their rehearsal studio, with no outside engineer (John McEntire later did the mix). They did not rehearse or jam together beforehand; they turned on the recorder and let things coalesce. Songs came together over long stretches, sometimes as much as a year going by between parts. You'd never guess this, since the layers are finessed with such a liquid brush. You'd imagine most of the songs had sprung forth whole, since they will enter your head that way. Within two listens you will be powerless to resist the magnetic draw of "Shades of Blue," will involuntarily hear "She May, She Might" on your internal jukebox first thing in the morning and "Let's Do It Wrong" late at night. While there's a riot going on you will feel capable of bobbing through like a cork.

                In 1971, when the nation appeared to be on the brink of violently coming apart, Sly and the Family Stone released There's a Riot Goin’ On, an album of dark, brooding energy. Now, under similar circumstances, Yo La Tengo have issued a record with the same name but with a different force, an album that proposes an alternative to anger and despair. Their first proper full-length since 2013’s Fade, There's a Riot Goin’ On is an expression of freedom and sanity and emotional expansion, a declaration of common humanity as liberating as it is soft-spoken. 

                TRACK LISTING

                You Are Here
                Shades Of Blue
                She May, She Might
                For You Too
                Ashes
                Polynesia #1
                Dream Dream Away
                Shortwave
                Above The Sound
                Let's Do It Wrong
                What Chance Have I Got
                Esportes Casual
                Forever
                Out Of The Pool
                Here You Are

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                Cover of Fade by Yo La Tengo.

                Yo La Tengo

                Fade

                Matador

                  ‘Fade’ is the most direct, personal and cohesive album of Yo La Tengo’s career. Recorded with John McEntire at Soma Studios in Chicago, it recalls the sonic innovation and lush cohesion of career high points like 1997’s ‘I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One’ and 2000’s ‘…And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out’. ‘Fade’ is a tapestry of fine melody and elegant noise, rhythmic shadow play and shy-eyed orchestral beauty, songfulness and experimentation.

                  ‘Fade’ attains a lyrical universality and hard-won sense of grandeur that’s rare even for this band. It weaves themes of aging, personal tragedy and emotional bonds into a fully-realized whole that recalls career-defining statements like ‘Blood On The Tracks’, ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ or Al Green’s ‘Call Me’.

                  “Nothing ever stays the same / Nothing’s explained”, the band sing in unison on the reflective opening track ‘Ohm’. “We try not to lose our hearts / Not to lose our minds” - a straightforward sentiment for a band that prefer private intimation to forceful expression, making the song’s resistance to resignation feel that much more earned.

                  This is the first time Yo La Tengo have collaborated with producer John McEntire, best known for his work in post-rock band Tortoise as well as his work with such artists as Bright Eyes, Stereolab and Teenage Fanclub. He has helped the band hone a set of songs as multifaceted as they are seamless, flowing from the low key shimmy of ‘Well You Better’ to the muted motorik kick of ‘Stupid Things’, to the cozy distortion of ‘Paddle Forward’ and right through to the cagey groove, horns and strings of the gorgeous album closer, ‘Before We Run’, in which the band’s Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan sing “Take me to your distant lonely place / Take me out beyond mistrust.”

                  ‘Fade’s emotional core sits at its very centre with two songs, one sung by Kaplan and one by Hubley. The tender, raw, Kaplan-sung ballad ‘I’ll Be Around’ pivots around a circular guitar figure set against James McNew’s calm, pulsating bassline. The song’s simplicity and starkness stand like a beacon against the emptiness.

                  ‘Cornelia And Jane’ features Hubley gently singing “I hear them whispering, they analyse, but nobody knows what’s lost in your eyes / Sending the message that doesn’t get to you, how can we care for you?”, supported by whispering cushions of horns and delicate vocal harmonies. The effect is both heartbreaking and reassuring.

                  “In the best possible sense, Yo La Tengocan feel less like a band and more like a beloved national trust” - Stereogum

                  STAFF COMMENTS

                  Andy says: Modern-day Velvets do it again.

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                  Cover of I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass - 120g Vinyl Pressing by Yo La Tengo.

                  Yo La Tengo

                  I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass - 120g Vinyl Pressing

                  Matador

                    ‘I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass’ is the eleventh full-length album by Hobokonbased alternative indie band Yo La Tengo, originally released on September 12, 2006. It is their sixth album released on Matador.

                    The title of the album is rumoured to be a (paraphrased) quote by NBA player Tim Thomas. Sitting on the bench together during a game, Thomas was caught on tape by the MSG Network in a profane exchange with another player: “Everyone in this organization is afraid of you, but I’m not, and I will beat your ass.”

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                    Cover of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-out by Yo La Tengo.

                    Yo La Tengo

                    And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-out

                    Matador

                      While their colossal sonic achievements are well-documented, Yo La Tengo's ninth album is more "In A Silent Way" than "Interstellar Space": a quietly intense melange of pulsing beats, acoustic guitar strum, ringing vibraphone and organ washes. Add electric guitar buzzing underneath dreamy, nearly whispered vocals, and "ATNTIIO" is more mood swing than song cycle. Yo La Tengo have stripped away layers of electric guitar chaos from their sound. Is it so we can hear their voices? So they can hear each other? Whatever the reason, Georgia and Ira's most audible and distinctive vocal performances to date are genuinely intimate and affecting. The quieter settings allow other subtle details to emerge: guest Susie Ibarra's percussion on the first single, "Saturday," high close harmonies swelling in from nowhere, Hubley's delicate brushwork, the gorgeous shimmer of vibes and mellotron. Such are the gifts of Yo La Tengo. They are a pop band, but don't just write pop songs; they write what can only be described as Yo La Tengo songs. By not rocking out, Ira, Georgia and James have made a record which shows how tight-knit a musical unit the trio have become. They are like a three-cornered atom harnessing its energy to the point where blinding explosions are no longer necessary to emanate power.

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                      Yo La Tengo

                      I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

                      Matador

                        Once again moving the bar for 'what can be done in just one record', no two songs sound the same. There's everything from epic soundscapes to jaunty popsongs, to gorgeous love songs with a few rock'n'roll numbers thrown in. All delivered with humour, a smattering of falsetto and a huge dose of that unique Yo La Tengo charm.

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                        Yo La Tengo

                        Prisoner Of Love: 1985-2003

                        Matador

                          "Prisoners Of Love" is a sprawling, enthralling summation of the career-to-date (as of 2005) of Yo La Tengo. The CDs cram together previously released highlights from YLT's pre-Matador tenure, along with the most sizzling moments from their second decade in show biz.

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