Yo La Tengo Summer Sun
Yo La Tengo’s Summer Sun opens with ‘Beach Party Tonight,’ an airy, instrumental song that sounds as if it is played in slow motion. It’s an expectant song that leads into ‘Little Eyes,’ a perfect example of why Yo La Tengo is fantastic. The songs, as well as the album’s title, draw attention to the fact that this CD absolutely captures something of those relaxed, warm, sweet-smelling afternoons spent in the backyard in July. And besides, who wouldn’t love a band in which the drummer and the guitarist are married?
This is the 12th album from Yo La Tengo (what Spanish baseball players yell when they’ve ‘got it’), and it is unique in many respects. It lacks electric guitar-driven songs and is intermingled with sweet ballads and grooves. As a whole, Summer Sun is delicate, smooth and quiet. If you are one of those people who skip the noisy, electric songs on your Velvet Underground CD, then this is an album for you.
But Summer Sun is not Yo La Tengo’s best work. If you want the best of the best, 2000’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out is critically labeled their ‘breakthrough work,’ while many fans consider 1997’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One as the band’s best album. Many will miss what Summer Sun has trimmed away. However, the highlights of this album are so high some of Yo La Tengo’s best songs to date that the overall lack of edge will be forgiven.
‘Little Eyes,’ one of the band’s greatest, is the first full song on the album. ‘Season of the Shark’ and ‘Today Is the Day’ continue the album’s beauty. The strange, unstructured ‘Tiny Birds’ presents a hitch in the albums progression. Then the second half forgoes sweet pop songs for the groovy, instrumental ‘Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo’ and the fast and fun ‘Moonrock Mambo.’ ‘Winter-a-Go-Go’ has a catchy chorus that is almost too hummable. ‘Let’s Be Still,’ the albums winding, seven-minute epic, is full of beautiful wind instruments and horns but does drag on in length. The album ends with a sweet goodbye: ‘Take Care.’
As Yo La says in ‘Tiny Birds,’ when we listen to music we say, ‘I won’t talk at all, but I’ll go for a ride.’ Summer Sun drives us in its Chevrolet with the windows down to a summer afternoon. If it’s going to keep snowing in April, you need to buy this album.
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