Yo La Tengo – Fade (2013)

It took me some time to get into Yo La Tengo's music. I started hearing about them at the latter half of the 00s, but at first, I didn't see what was so great about them. I felt like the songs didn't have proper melodies and even the sounds could've been more explosive. Nowadays I almost think that these are precisely the strengths of the band. Yo La Tengo's music is all about the mood. They build up their songs really long and because of the quiet bits, when the music suddenly does reach certain intensity, you can really feel it. I still do like their psychedelic almost Kraut-rock type songs the most though. Yo La Tengo is definitely the kind of music that goes sounds and improvisation first, not compositions first. I've only grown to love this approach fairly recently. I always used to think of music just as a mix of melodies and lyrics, at the expense of sounds and mood.



Yo La Tengo's music has lots of psychedelic and hypnotic elements. This is also quite apparently illustrated in the album cover. the album cover has a picture of some kind of a bush and the cover gleams and shines in different colours with a metallic shine. It's quite clear just from that what kind of music you can expect from the album. Fade is a bit calmer album overall than many other Yo La Tengo albums, but there is great strength in the hypnotic qualities.

I feel like I really started appreciating Yo La Tengo properly after seeing them live at the Barbican Centre. As you might expect from a band that likes to improvise and is all about sounds, they sound amazing live. There's a freedom to do different things with the songs on stage when the melodic and rhythmic structures are looser. They do have a few sort of hit songs that follow the customary patterns of pop music, but more often than not, the songs take their time and go for hypnosis rather than making you sing and move along.

I feel like Yo La Tengo's albums always have a really strong opening track. This album is no exception. Ohm is a long psychedelic rock song that loops vocal patterns over and over again while the 60s style hippie guitars merge with noisy garage solos. Is That Enough is a much more straightforward song in terms of songwriting. It has almost a catchy and calm melody, while the instrumentation is quite lo-fi. The chorus makes you hum along. Well You Better has a nicely rolling bass line and beat that reminds me of some of the more upbeat Belle & Sebastian songs, but the vocals sound kind of muffled and distant. Paddle Forward is much more rock-oriented with garage-style electric guitars and proper tempo. I'm kind of reminded of Sonic Youth in Places although the vocal melody is way too conventional. Stupid Things brings out 60s hippy psychedelia spiced with some hypnotic Kraut-rock. The contrast between the soft solo guitars and hard rhythm guitars is quite cool. I'll Be Around is a minimalist folk song. The first song on the album that's mainly acoustic. I can picture this song being played on an idle weekend afternoon in the living room. Cornelia and Jane brings out the vocals of Ira Kaplan who has stayed mostly in the background in this album so far. There's great kind of softness in her voice. Two Trains sounds a bit like Albatross by Fleetwood Mac, there's same kind of stillness in the guitar sounds. However, the hypnotic almost whispered vocals also give that sense of calmness. The Point of It has cool echoey electric guitars that slide up and down. Again, we stay in the absolute calm. The album ends with Before We Run that features buzzing electric guitars and grows throughout the song.

There is a music video for a shortened version of the opening song Ohm. The video is just as psychedelic as you might expect. It features multicoloured magic animated world with animals and flying cars. Every now and then, we go to a class room where a person writes equations on the white board that feature bands and artists from music history. The result ends up being Yo La Tengo. I think it's really appropriate, since Yo La Tengo sounds like a band that really knows their rock history. There are influences from all over the place.

I often like to listen to Yo La Tengo when I'm a bit tired. I feel like their hypnotic qualities work to their advantage best when a bit tired. If you've only listened to Yo La Tengo a couple of times and are not convinced, I really recommend sticking to it for a bit longer, since their music takes a bit of time getting into, but really pays off after a while.

Listen to the album on Spotify.