Stuff Like That There

Stuff might not be a true follow-up to 2013's Fade, but it's an excellent follow-up to Fakebook 15 years later.

As usual, YLT evoke a lot of emotion and Stuff Like That There is another luscious, heavy-hearted piece of storytelling, which I'm accustomed to when it comes to their style.

At first, newcomers to Yo La Tengo’s work might find the results irredeemably--even unconscionably--pleasant. Yet over this album’s full running time, there is something magnetically insidious about the way James McNew’s standup bass and Georgia Hubley’s percussion knit together material from sources as diverse as George Clinton and Hank Williams.

So it’s an oddly pointless record--but utterly lovely.

With the zeal of archivists and a yen for experimentation, they have found strength in giving tribute to their influences, reaffirming the role of interpretation in contemporary music.

If Stuff Like That There isn't as revelatory as Fakebook, it's a splendid, beguiling album that's perfectly suited for late nights and rainy afternoons, and a welcome reminder of one of the many, many things Yo La Tengo do so well.

Whilst it won’t necessarily win Yo La Tengo many new fans, the aromatic potpourri of Stuff Like That There should happily intoxicate existing ones.

What ultimately makes Stuff Like That There such an appealing record is the obvious delight in performing these songs.

You’d be hard pushed to find a more beguiling soundtrack for late summer evenings.

Weird, beautiful music to get lost in space--or at least a hammock--to.

With new release Stuff Like That There, Yo La Tengo are celebrating the silver jubilee of 1990’s Fakebook by once again demonstrating their flair for interpreting the works of others, as well as reinventing their own back catalogue.

The concept is a bit arch and it's easy to get overly trainspotterish with this kind of venture.... apart frim some obviously recognisable moments it sounded like a quality Yo La Tengo album. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Stuff is a comforting listen, startlingly consistent in mood and featuring some of Yo La Tengo's most touching moments. [Sep 2015, p.70]

As a treat for the most passionate fans, it’s a winner, but by focusing on only one aspect of the band’s identity it doesn’t register as much as almost every other record they’ve ever released.

Although Stuff Like That There drags a bit, it's lovely to think that Yo La Tengo parse through their history as closely as their biggest fans do.

Stuff Like That There may not always intrigue on a track-by-track basis, but, taken as a whole, the record stands as a loving portrait of Yo La Tengo’s vast musical and social universe condensed into a small wooden frame.

Stuff Like That There shows that Yo La Tengo is, remarkably, still effectively the same band it was a quarter-century ago: graceful, centered and eager to play its latest finds.

The latest is lean, hushed and mostly covers.

They’ve honed their approach to a point where they can’t really sound like anyone except themselves. Mostly, though, this is the key to the deep likeability of Stuff Like That There.

The new songs continue to hold the line narrative of the last few Yo La Tengo records without adding much new. But at moments when the performance is so assured, the hairs stand up and you're reminded anew of how the group got you to care. [Aug 2015, p.56]

Yo La Tengo manages to further their transparency and place the focus even more on the material, faking their way through another series of delicately adjusted, quietly exquisite reinterpretations.

The new tracks (“Awhileaway,” “Rickety”) are pretty if slight, and reveal little of the dynamic range that made Fade such a latter-period highlight. Better are the new-old YLT tunes, even if the selections are occasionally baffling.

Ultimately, Stuff Like That There is a pretty listen, even if it sometimes blends into the background. It can occasionally veer toward an abundance of preciousness.

Despite their success in covering themselves, a cover album truly lives and dies by the songs that the band chooses to cover, and in that Yo La Tengo flourish.

Fans will appreciate Yo La Tengo reinventing their own The Ballad Of Red Buckets and Deeper Into Movies from noisy chaos to whispered, but still intense, quiet. [Oct 2015, p.117]

The song choices aren’t a deep excavation from the quicksand of their record collection (“Friday I’m in Love,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”), and the uniform decision to do these all in a clean format with brushed percussion and campfire acoustics is exactly what one would presume from an all-covers venture.

Despite the album’s disparate material, it has a lulling cohesiveness. All the songs, wherever they come from, feel like they have been reimagined at the same volume and tempo and in the same wistful ambience.

The truth is that, for possibly the first time in Yo La Tengo’s discography, they're a bit boring.