Yo La Tengo
Today Is the Day

THE REVIEW

The purpose of art could be, as in philosophy for Wittgenstein, «to liberate the fly from the bottle».

Yo La Tengo, from New Jersey, have been, for thirty years, an institution of American Indie Rock. Alongside formal, canonical production, there are many EPs, unreleased tracks, alternate versions, and collections of B-Sides (“Genius+Love=Yo La Tengo”, from 1996, and “A Smattering Of Outtakes And Rarities”, attached to the first pressing of the best of “Prisoners of Love” from 2003). Not to mention the official cover compilations “Fakebook” (1990) and the recent “Stuff Like That There” (2016), as well as episodic collaborations and aliases (i.e. Condo Fucks). These are always notable artifacts, which would not have looked out of place in their main works. They offer a more complete picture of what I would define as their realistic impressionism.

“Today Is The Day” (Matador, 2003) is a CD EP collateral to the LP “Summer Sun” (same reference points), that is the album that followed the crucial “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out”, a masterpiece venturing into the territories of Electronics and Jazz, with rarefied and poignant atmospheres, a dreamlike, intimate sense, divided into thirteen admirable chapters, and “The Sound of The Sound of Science”, an instrumental and expansive soundtrack for Jean Painlevé's documentaries on the underwater world. Not to mention the Maxi Single with four covers of “Nuclear War” by Sun Ra. “Summer Sun”, despite the devaluation of the time, was an excellent album, sunny, calm, once again devoted to eclecticism. The least Velvet-like work of ours. Pop Rock, Jazz-infused Rock, Lounge exercises, Funky whims, between delicate compositions, cultured research, and healthy optimism.

Stefano Benni “remembers” that Aristotle worked as a waiter for two years «and had the intuition of his logic observing a customer trying to stick a large onion with a fork». Logic, indeed. The Yo La Tengo logic is illogical. In this, it is Indie. It steps outside the markets. Unfailingly connected to the heart. The Extended “Today Is The Day”, far from being a mere assortment of sketches and cast-offs, could have served as the base for an album for anyone. They, instead, crystallize a phase of spreading creative urgency and stop. Firm points:

1. Their dual soul: acoustic, with Folk melodies and electric, Noise Rock, saturated with feedback and dissonances. Velvet-like in both, just move from the third to the second LP of the New Yorkers. But it's not citationism. It is the most powerful eclecticism, in an omnivorous and personal discourse that dismantles certainties and genres.
2. The artistic and affective relationship of the Kaplan couple. How they exchange, for example, the vocal parts in interpreting the “double life” of their pieces. Each is half of a greater unity.
3. Lack of postures and winks. The importance of the proposals and the encyclopedic breadth of musical horizons.
4. Hoboken, New Jersey. The most unlikely place. A city where night descends like nowhere else.
5. Guitar, bass, drums. Ira, James (since 1992), Georgia. And voices. What else is needed to make Rock?
6. The initial passions are always latent. That is: Love, Soft Boys, Mission Of Burma.
7. Artistic coherence. The rare beauty, somewhat hidden. The balance between innovative charge and reference to tradition.

The EP’s artwork in question echoes the style of Ornette Coleman’s covers. The tracks:

"Today Is the Day", beautiful, slow, dreamy in the LP, here, on the contrary, aggressive and fast. Ira frantically tortures the guitar as J. Mascis would. But the delicate singing of Hubley chills against that wall of sound. Georgia's voice is thin, diaphanous. In a torrent of noises. And of hypnotic stylings. A disorienting thing. «Another day, come and gone/ Don’t think I can ever sing that song/ Little secrets we bring along/ I’m taking my time, trailing behind, I thought of you/ Today