And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
(Matador)
Yo La Tengo = Van Morrison.
Consider: the best work of both is trendless and complete, yet entirely imbued with all that has gone before them. They’re both accessible, yet can’t fit comfortably in any existing category. Somehow, they used rock and roll to make great rock and roll at times when rock and roll wasn’t supposed to be interesting anymore. Into the mystic? Pretty close.
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Yo La Tengo’s tenth album, is a beautiful document of the trio working in a velutinous landscape, husband and wife Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, (with essential fulcrum James McNew manning the anchor) pushing off for new lands with this quietly buzzing collection.
Within their original compositions, Yo La Tengo’s influences rarely rise nakedly to the surface, but on And Then...two songs illustrate the depth of their immersion in the rock pantheon: “From Black to Blue”’s opening words (“several times”) copy a section of Brian Eno’s “Golden Hours”, while the piano and first lyric of “Tears Are In Your Eyes” unmistakably evoke Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 recording “Racing in the Street”. Just as Morrison might toss John Lee Hooker’s phrasing (consciously or not) into his songs, Tengo glue pieces of rock history into theirs. . Who else could accomplish “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House”, a poppy tale of arson and scorned love featuring Frankie Valli and Dawn?
The unlikely Eno/Springsteen duality indicates the record’s mood, especially the former’s ambient pop language, which even sends the cover of George McCrae’s disco bump “You Can Have It All” into another green world. Kaplan and Hubley tug at the fabric of attracting (“Our Way to Fall”) and lusting (“Cherry Chapstick”) and loving (“Last Days of Disco”) and coexisting (“The Crying of Lot G”), not to make a statement, but to reflect and ponder.
And Then...finally fully reveals itself in the 18-minute closer, “Night Falls On Hoboken”. Kaplan drives the title home with wide, warping feedback and wraps around Hubley’s angelic harmonies (she sings magnificently throughout the disc) and reminds what your hearing: It’s your old friends Ira and Georgia, strolling off into the darkness. Are they going separate ways? Holding hands? Kissing? No, they’re just heading to the record collection to put Bruce and Brian back. Wonder who’ll they’ll pick next?
unpublished, 2000
