Yo La Tengo
Summer Sun
Matador
Yeah, yeah, yeah; here in New York, it's snowing in April and there
goes Yo La Tengo releasing its new, teasingly titled Summer Sun.
As if we could possibly remember such a thing given the perpetual gray
that's been ceiling us since, well, the summer sun went away. It'd be easy
to believe that Yo La Tengo was trying to pull some kind of sick joke over
our frostbitten ears if it wasn't for the utmost sincerity of this New Jersey trio's
previous pop. There's no laughing or finger-pointing to be found anywhere
on this, its twelfth album proper — it's difficult to sneer in a
whisper and harder still to be sarcastic when you're Yo La Tengo. Like a
slowly descending beam of warmth to come, Summer Sun pleads to us
freezing folks to hold on.
Stretching out of the den of hibernation, opener "Beach Party Tonight" crawls
with cloying beauty. It's a wake-up call of sorts, wisping around horns
and barely coherent vocals that enfold you the way morning does when
you take your time with it. When you come to, Yo La Tengo murmuress
Georgia Hubley saunters in, cooing "Little eyes are open/ but they don't
see very far ... they're sinking back again/ Don't you know they're
sleeping much too long?" in "Little Eyes." And so it goes, more or less,
among the remaining tracks that precariously toe the line between sleep
and wakefulness, as if not sure whether to lure you to sleep, wake you or just
tug you along in the well-worn grooves between the two.
There's nothing wrong with the in-between. It's where the dawns of
Summer Sun — 1997's I Can Hear the Heart Beating as
One and 2001's And then nothing turned itself inside-out —
sprawled successfully with heartfelt sentiments of bloom and bounce.
Summer Sun dwells there, too.
That space works best when Yo La Tengo revels in the surroundings
— the sighing beats, sultry waves of guitar and YLT's own
accompanying mumbles that the space inspires. "Tiny Birds" soars in
with cymbals and muffled guitar pickings before James McNew delivers the
stilted, "I will go if you say you'll go, but you won't go." Alright. So,
no one goes anywhere and the results are pristine and relaxed with the
contentment of inaction. In the charming and willowy "How to Make a Baby
Elephant Float," third Yo Ira Kaplan barely pushes words out of his
mouth in his familiar, hushed sing-speak. A string of tender talk ("I like
to hold hands when we walk/ I'm not averse to pillow talk/ but I prefer a
private joke") uncovers the kind of comfort that exists between people who
really know each other (the wedded Kaplan and Hubley, in this case).
It also reveals Yo La Tengo's understanding of stasis without
stagnation. The unfortunately jazzy "Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo" and "Moonrock Mambo" try
to shake some action, but the band is better off when its keyboards glide
and it's not rhyming "Charleston Chew" with "chicken stew." "Let's Be
Still," then, is an anthem to staying put. Longer than 10 minutes, the tune is
hardly boring. A combination of steady piano and airy vocals, it's a
subtle reminder that we still dream though our feet are firmly planted.
Summer Sun, despite its name, is not exactly a seasonal record.
For now, anyway, it's more like a hope-for-a-change-of-season record
— or just hopeful. On the album's closer, a cover of Big Star's "Take Care,"
Hubley sings us home through the nostalgic porch song, gently reciting,
"Take care, take care please..." And we will. Until the real one comes
out, this Summer Sun will do.
— Lavina Lee (lavina at flakmag dot com)
