Yo La Tengo
May I Sing With Me

THE REVIEW

Yo La Tengo are one of the longest-running and most prolific bands in that American movement known as alternative rock, which originated in college radio stations in the 80s and in the early-decade avant-garde. Or in both. It includes wildly different bands: from the Pixies to Sonic Youth, from Throwing Muses to Dinosaur Jr, from Husker Du to Sea and the Cake. Yo La Tengo can be considered one of the few, if not the only one, in this scene to have never stopped since their distant debut with the surprising Ride The Tiger in 1986 (a lively mix of hardcore, country pop, and folk) and to have always maintained a very high quality standard in all their works.

A constant and uplifting career based on avoiding media exposure and the majors, always measured experimentation, and a certain nerdy black humor based on the love for the Velvet Underground. A band from the very beginning "out of time" and cult par excellence from which the leader Ira Kaplan also draws inspiration for his very particular guitar style and clear melodies. But everything, in the end, with a bit more lightness than Lou Reed's band.

May I Sing with Me, this album dated 1993, is rightly considered by many the band's masterpiece. The perfect meeting point between the relaxation and eclecticism of future albums and the sparse and noisy hardcore of the beginnings. After this, no Yo La Tengo album will ever be so organic again, and instead, they will exhibit an unmistakable schizophrenia in all subsequent works, mainly in the other, later masterpiece I Can Hear The Heart Beating as One. It is also the band's first work with its current and definitive line-up, thanks to the addition of bassist James McNew (somewhat like Evol was for Sonic Youth).

There's no trace of electronics yet within the individual tracks, but there is room for chart-topping powerpop in the single Upside Down and for the furious punk-noise of Mushroom Cloud of Hiss and Out the Window. Their idea of country and psychedelia à la Violent Femmes resurfaces for the last time in 86-Second Blowout.  But the true masterpiece of the album, in my opinion, is that Detouring America with Horns, a very melodic and long-rising track with its bright guitar chords, entirely written by the drummer and singer Georgia Hubley (also Kaplan's wife and co-founder of the combo).

Yo La Tengo are generally not an emotional band, but rather demonstrate great compositional quality and a curious eclecticism. But we like them that way.