And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out

A gorgeous collection of intensely quiet songs filled with lush harmonies and haunting sonic atmospherics.... rarely has the group sounded better.

The arbiters of mellow have turned the fully realized indie pop of their last and most accessible effort, I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One, inside out, exposing a softer, fleshy side that's more akin to some of their earlier outings.

Making a record that delivers satisfaction from start to finish is a rare and momentous thing. Making any record that sounds unlike anything else is a victory in itself. To bring the two in line as Yo La Tengo has done with And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out may as well be called perfection.

Here the trio trade in the constant reliance on the fuzzed out guitars that led the charge of their steady rise through obscurity for the more subdued moments that have occasionally reared up in past projects.

Gorgeously melancholy... mid-tempo grooves and hushed ballads dressed up in dreamy keyboards and liquidly reverberant guitars.

A beautiful, fragile, record that demands your full attention, then pays back dividends.

A clearly adult, unfashionably sensitive document, all grace and understatement, experimental through what it leaves out, and the effects it plants in the background.

A very pretty, measured album of slow, organ-supported mood crawls. And nothing else.

The first three-quarters of Inside-Out contains some of Yo La Tengo's best work to date. As a whole, however, it may be one of their less ear-catching records. If recorded by an aspiring young band, Inside-Out would be deemed the next big thing by all music press. However, people are used to Ira Kaplan's masterful electric assaults and the broad range of sounds that generally appear in spades on Yo La Tengo's LPs.

This is a quiet pearl. It may spin a few times before you notice. [#46, p.32]

At times recalling Eno's Another Green World.

Kaplan and Hubley sing their most confessional, intimate lyrics ever, over whispery guitars, brushed percussion, vibes and organ drones. It's a spell of blissful, psychedelic make-out music... these songs are great - heartfelt, rugged, melodically sumptuous enough to keep unfolding after dozens of spins, full of folk-rock flesh and blood.

And while not so instantly accessible as much of the band's recent output, the songs still manage to be catchy, if elusively so; this is an album that rewards repeated listening.

Instead of the pleasing pop potpourri of their last album... the 13 songs on And Then Nothing . . . flow together subtly, all texture, mood and shade.... Yo La Tengo's tenth collection of warm, tiny songs is by far the finest in their careers...

And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, while not unremarkable, is still a little disappointing, too light on memorable hooks and melodies, too long on leisurely arrangements, and not too great to obliterate feelings that Yo La Tengo usually does better.

A calm triumph.

The main problem with this background tour de force is that you understand not just how good it is but how pretty it is only when you listen up.