Yo La Tengo

The seventh album by Hoboken-based indie-rock heroes Yo La Tengo falls in the middle of their excellent mid-‘90s trilogy. Sandwiched between 1993’s ‘Painful’ and 1997’s ‘I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One,’ 1995’s ‘Electr-O-Pura’ plays like the bridge between the hazy alt-rock noise of Yo La Tengo’s formative years and the shorter, snappier pop grooves they began to explore as the decade wound down. With a focus on songs, ‘Electr-O-Pura’ stands as one of the most accessible albums by the not-always-so-accessible trio.

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Musically speaking, Yo La Tengo’s eighth album, 1997’s ‘I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One,’ is the New Jersey trio’s most expansive. Its wide-open playground of styles, sounds and genres helps explain why the record ranks among the group’s most popular. It’s also the band’s warmest record at that point, a soft coming down after the previous two LPs’ creative highlights. Nothing sounds forced on ‘I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One,’ not even the 10-minute space jam.

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Pitchfork Music Festival has just announced a slew of acts to round out this year’s killer lineup. Joining previously announced headliners Belle and Sebastian, Bjork and R. Kelly are M.I.A. and Yo La Tengo, plus many more.

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Following their trilogy of ‘90s classics, Yo La Tengo entered the new millennium with a new record and a new direction. Starting with 1993’s ‘Painful’ and continuing through ‘Electr-O-Pura’ (’95) and ending up with ‘I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One’ (’97), the New Jersey trio shaped their artfully sculpted indie rock into gorgeous, and often thorny, works that bridged head and heart. On ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out,’ which celebrates its 13th anniversary today, they went straight for the heart.

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Yo La Tengo's new 'I'll Be Around' video looks like a lyric video -- words appear and fade away pretty much in time with the lyrics to the song -- but upon closer inspection, it quickly becomes clear that the words on the screen mostly aren't the ones frontman Ira Kaplan is singing (and that for some reason Kaplan isn't even the one pictured singing in the clip -- that would be Mac McCaughan of the band Superchunk).

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Yo La Tengo issued a new album, 'Fade,' yesterday (Jan. 15), and to celebrate, the veteran indie act stopped by 'Late Night With Jimmy Fallon' to perform two songs from the disc: 'Ohm' (watch above), which aired during the broadcast and featured additional backing percussion from Fred Armisen of 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Portlandia' fame, and 'I'll Be Around' (watch below), which is available as a web exclusive. 'Fade' has been getting mostly stellar reviews (read ours here), and these two live jams sound pretty stellar themselves.

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There’s always been a mournful quality to Yo La Tengo’s music. For more than 25 years, the New Jersey trio – led by the husband-and-wife team of Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley – has found sadness in beauty, and vice versa. More so than the two bands that they’re frequently compared to – the Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth – Yo La Tengo strike a balance of dragged-out improvisation and focused pop splendor that borders on unapologetic grandeur.

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'Above,' the one and only album from the Layne Stayley-led '90s supergroup Mad Season, is getting a fancy reissue.

Yo La Tengo are touring West Coast record stores in support of their new record, 'Fade.'

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Does the tree pictured in the new video for 'Ohm,' a tune off Yo La Tengo's forthcoming 13th album, 'Fade,' look familiar? Perhaps you live near Portland, Ore.'s Overlook Park, which is where the tree resides? Maybe you remember it from the video for 'Before We Run,' the first single off the new YLT album? Or you could have just already peeked at the cover of 'Fade,' which also pictures the picturesque tree?

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What will the next Yo La Tengo album sound like? Get a little taste by checking out the animated video for 'Before We Run,' the first tune unleashed from 'Fade,' the Jersey outfit's 13th overall full-length album and first since 2009's 'Popular Songs.' The closing salvo on 'Fade,' 'Before We Run' is six minutes of classic YLT-flavored indie rock goodness, with reverb-drenched guitar melodies, vocal harmonies from Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, crisp percussion tones (cranked unusually high up in the mix) and an assortment of horn and string swoops bringing up the rear.

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