Yo La Tengo - The veterans of alternative rock

The artistic and familial partnership at the heart of Yo La Tengo has given rise to one of the most important sagas in American alternative rock, not only for the quality of their output but also for their unusual longevity, comparable to few other phenomena of the genre. Despite the many (perhaps too many) albums released, Yo La Tengo have always managed to combine an experimental attitude with a startling clarity of purpose, which has kept them from sinking into the self-indulgent, overly cerebral intellectualism in which so many figures of the "indie" circuit have gotten stuck. Their typically Velvet-inspired psychedelia has been updated over the years, through a creative recycling of styles from the past, as well as an absorption of the most original trends of the moment.

The long history of Yo La Tengo begins in 1984 in Hoboken, a small town in New Jersey (USA). It's here that singer and music critic (for the "New York Rocker") Ira Kaplan and his partner Georgia Hubley, herself a drummer and singer, decide to cultivate their shared passion for rock within a band. The curious chosen name stems from Kaplan's love of baseball: "Yo La Tengo" is the Spanish phrase typically shouted by an outfielder calling for a fly ball: "I've got it!"

On their debut album, Ride The Tiger (1986), the duo is backed by a sizeable cast of musicians, from guitarist Dave Schramm to bassist and producer Clint Conley (Mission Of Burma). The record immediately stands out for its engaging, guitar-driven sound, with psychedelic flourishes that recall above all Television and Feelies. Kaplan's talent shines in the instrumental charge of "The Evil That Men Do", as well as in the hushed country-rock of "The Way Some People Die". The pursuit of trance, another hallmark of the band, surfaces above all in acid-tinged ballads like "Forest Green" and "The Cone Of Silence". Less successful is the cover of "Big Sky" by the Kinks. Though still a little raw, the album immediately highlights the band's main quality: eclecticism. Their sound is intellectual without sacrificing rock's primal freshness; it can be noisy while still retaining a clear melodic vein; it can turn dark and neurotic when Kaplan's "Reed-like" baritone takes over, but also fragile and ethereal when Hubley's delicate soprano comes to the fore.

New Wave Hot Dogs (1987), beyond revealing in its title the band's signature sardonic irony, further refines their style, emphasizing the "rock" side at the expense of the "country" element still tangible on the debut. Kaplan's guitar dominates, following in the footsteps of a less neurotic Neil Young and a less alienated Tom Verlaine, respectively. The absence of Schramm's second guitar, however, is noticeable, and at times one gets the sense that the group throws out too many ideas without fully grasping any of them. The vibrant "House Fall Down", the ethereal "Blocks from Groove St." and the dark cover of Reed's "It's Alright (The Way That You Live)" provide the best moments.

The record would later be reissued on CD together with the following President Yo La Tengo (1989), likewise rich yet at times scattershot, ranging from the quiet folk of "Alyda" to the looping feedback of "Barnaby Hardly Working", from a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Threw It All Away" to the ten-minute noisy guitar marathon of "Evil That Men Do (Pablo's Version)", poised between Neil Young and Mission Of Burma, and the furious thrash of "Orange Song".

Schramm rejoins the band for Fakebook (1990), a collection of covers (Kinks, Flying Burrito Brothers, John Cale, Cat Stevens, Flamin Groovies, Daniel Johnston, etc.) rearranged in simple but evocative fashion, with the addition of the previously unreleased "Summer".

Though full of interesting ideas, these latest works had reduced Yo La Tengo's standing to that of an '80s surrogate for the Velvet Underground, relegating them to a niche audience, despite the band's solid presence on the college radio circuit.

With the arrival of bassist James McNew (ex-Christmas) as a permanent member, and with Hubley emerging as lead vocalist, the band's career takes a leap in quality with May I Sing With Me (1992). Kaplan and co. find the courage to devote themselves almost exclusively to a particular brand of guitar-driven psychedelia; the addition of electronic instruments helps personalize and finally bring into focus their sound, increasingly built around a subdued, lucid "trance rock" free of the alienation typical of most bands in the field. The Yo La Tengo sound nonetheless continues to swing between noise-rock and pop melody. At one extreme sits "Mushroom Cloud Of Hiss", a guitar tour de force branded by a relentless string of dissonances and feedback, with Hubley's drums driving increasingly frantic rhythms. On the melodic front, meanwhile, Hubley's tender lullabies dominate: "Satellite", "Always Something" and "Swing For Life", though it's the loose-limbed folk of "Upside Down" that leaves the deepest mark. If the hard-rock riff of "Some Kinda Fatigue" marries the Velvet Underground with Jason & the Scorchers, the long lysergic trip of "Sleeping Pill" indulges the band's more experimental ambitions. If anything, it's Kaplan's restlessness and hyperactivity that cause damage, undercutting the seductive appeal of "Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)" and muddying the delicate tapestry of Hubley's vocals on "Detouring America With Horns". May I Sing With Me nonetheless marks a leap in quality for the band's output, inaugurating the most creative phase of its career.

Taking an even more decisive step away from the sonic Babel of their early days is the following Painful (1993), which doesn't entirely renounce the noisy abrasiveness of Sonic Youth, but drowns it in a calmly hypnotic atmosphere, in a dreamlike rather than narcotic psychedelia, where whispers and drones rule and guitar clatter is pushed into the background. Yo La Tengo retreat into a sonic oasis that only occasionally catches fire. Far from the garage-rock impetuousness of their early work, their mood edges closer to that of their shoegaze contemporaries. Kaplan and Hubley trade vocals on "Big Day Coming" and "Nowhere Near", keeping the dreamy atmosphere intact: a whirl of sounds, noise and drones melted together into a single mass that could seemingly float on forever. New age isn't so far off. "Sudden Organ" is a ballad that offers no escape, while the riff of "From A Motel 6" is worthy of peak Sonic Youth. The long instrumental jam of "I Heard You Looking", finally, best sums up the band's melodic sensibility and noise-loving soul.

Electr-O-Pura (1995), however, marks a small step back, losing the almost "mystical" tension that pervaded Painful. The swing between harsh and soft tones returns in particular, masking a certain confusion of styles. Hubley takes on an ever more central role: it's she who carries tracks like "Pablo And Andrea" (a lovely breeze fueled by Kaplan's soft finger-picking) and the noisy "(Straight Down to the) Bitter End". Kaplan's baritone, on the other hand, holds court on "Tom Courtenay", a winning pop harmony that pays homage to 60s English beat, and, with Verlaine-like aplomb, on "Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)". The band's romantic side basks in the bluesy melody of "My Heart's Reflection" and the gospel organ of "Hour Grows Late", while its leader's guitar work excels in the lysergic reverb of "Decora" and the sprawling "Blue Line Swinger", which closes the record in an orgy of tremolo and reverb, counterpoint and feedback.

Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo (1996) is a double CD (half sung, half instrumental) collecting rare and unreleased tracks.

But the band had by now refined its style and was ready to release its definitive masterpiece: I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997). As well as bringing to maturity ideas and styles sketched out in earlier works, the album introduces some novelties: Yo La Tengo try their hand at bossa nova sounds for the first time ("Center of Gravity"), flirt with the experimental electronics of classic acts (Can, Kraftwerk) and of their contemporaries (Stereolab) on the single "Autumn Sweater", and bring in bassist James McNew on vocals ("Stockholm Syndrome"). But it's the band's overall sound that comes across as more original and exciting than ever.

The range of sonic solutions on display is surprisingly broad. You can stumble upon the Superchunk-style pseudo-grunge of "Deeper Into Movies" and the Galaxie 500-style trumpet solo of the enchanting "Shadows", the lethargic, finely jazz-inflected litany of "Moby Octopad", and the delightful electronic drones and mystical organ phrases of "Autumn Sweater". But Kaplan still knows how to come at the listener with the grit of a hardrocker, as the energetic "Sugarcube" confirms. And while "Stockholm Syndrome" is a gem of acoustic pop with a timeless flavour, the band's psychedelic spleen flashes again through the hypnotic dissonances of "Damage". Even a boogie/shoegaze-flavoured cover of the Beach Boys' "Little Honda" shines through its sheer eccentricity.

If anything risks sinking the album, it's the ten minutes of the instrumental "Spec Bebop", which is all too pretentious and self-indulgent. Luckily, Hubley makes sure to close the record in style with a pure, candid version of "My Little Corner of the World", worthy of a Nico who survived post-rock.

I Can Hear The Heart Beating as One is a kind of virtual catalogue of the styles and trends in vogue in the mid-1990s. A precious synthesis that confirms Yo La Tengo's talent as composers and musicians. It's striking how, after so many years already in the business, the New Jersey band manages to display even greater creative ability and clarity of purpose than in their earliest work. More thanks to shared good fortune than to the individual gifts of each member, according to Kaplan: "We've been lucky to discover we're three individuals united, able to move forward with common intentions".

Continuing the evolution of their sound toward an "all-round" rock, Yo La Tengo deliver with And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (2000) a new bouquet of references for connoisseurs, a fresh demonstration of their "mature" sound, made up of relaxed, psychedelic, jazzy atmospheres. The (unusual) three-year gap that preceded it gave the trio time to fine-tune their aim toward an even more dreamlike rock, of which the album's 77 minutes are the summation: "We tried a lot of different sequences for the songs", they recall, "but no matter how we arranged them, we could never bring ourselves to cut anything — we were genuinely convinced by every single one".

By now veterans of American indie-rock, deeply versed in all its folds and crannies, Yo La Tengo turn down the amp and once again wink at the folky sounds of Fakebook, but also at contemporary post-rock. Even echoes of the Velvet Underground end up drowning in an atmosphere of unreal calm. The opening "Everyday", for instance, immediately wraps the listener in this idyllic mood, with whispering keyboards and minimal guitar phrases barely disturbed by the bass's sinister accents. And it's hard to survive this crepuscular spell once you run into the languid whispers of "Saturday", the indolent melancholy of "Our Way To Fall", or the tender lullaby of "Tears In Your Eyes". But there's no shortage of more eccentric episodes either, from the Stereolab-like acid melody of "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House" to the martial swagger of "Last Days Of Disco", reminiscent of Can's "Future Days", all the way to a sober cover of a disco classic, George McRae's "You Can Have It All". The distortion and feedback of their more "Velvet-ish" past survive only in "Cherry Chapstick". All this before night swallows the band whole in the 17 minutes of sleepwalking psychedelia that is "Night Falls On Hoboken".

The Yo La Tengo saga continues with Summer Sun (2003) in the direction of a progressive expansion of space and a clever electronic contamination, even if perhaps the oblique inspiration that animated the Hoboken band's finest moments is somewhat missing. Yo La Tengo now push toward refined jazzy, lounge-inflected suggestions, recalling a more rarefied version of Stereolab. Amid floating instrumentals like the opening "Beach Party Tonight" and unexpected funky temptations, the best moments come from the evocative melodic openings whispered by Kaplan, as in the gentle "Season Of The Shark" and "Tiny Birds" or the more driving "Don't Have To Be So Sad" and "Moonrock Mambo". The cover of Big Star's "Take Care", entrusted to Hubley's thin, delicate voice, shares the same bittersweet smile that lit up Alex Chilton's masterpiece, "Third". The "beach party", in short, is still very much a nocturnal celebration for Yo La Tengo, with the sand holding onto the memory of the sun's last warmth and the boundless horizon of the sea marking the dimension of the soul.

The EP Today Is The Day (2003) collects three tracks not included on the album: "Styles Of The Times", "Outsmarter" and the brief instrumental interlude "Dr Crash". Almost twenty years on from their debut, Yo La Tengo keep their class fully intact, but the sense is that these indie-rock veterans are now driven mainly by the urge to add a few new brushstrokes to an all-too-familiar painting.

Fortunately, keeping attention on their golden era is the excellent double anthology Prisoners Of Love – A Smattering Of Scintillating Senescent Songs 1985-2003, containing a full 26 tracks.

In 2006, the reaction arrives. I'm Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass. Pride, and a kick in the backside for anyone obsessed with burning through novelty after novelty in a matter of minutes. The towering riff of "Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind" sets things straight right away, with a vague — though not that vague — kraut flavour, distortion and acid jamming, the past coming back, Kaplan's psychedelic guitar work writhing away. But above all, the album hands us a string of delightful pop songs.

It kicks off propelled by the horns of "Beanbag Chair", a pressing piano pulse and a lulling melody in the chorus, fusing class and bubblegum; it crosses funky-soul terrain in the sprightly "Mr. Tough"; it passes through the sunny, light "The Weakest Part"; it lets itself be caressed by the veiled "Sometimes I Don't Get You", oozing absolute peace. And in the end it lands the blow with two little gems of majestic purity: "I Feel Like Going Home", the sweetest pop-folk entrusted to an enchanting siren of a Hubley; and "Black Flowers", a piano ballad with an epic, touching vocal line.

Craft, talent and imagination. "The Race Is On Again", the obligatory track, psych guitar, rails to accompany the journey, personality, and, once again, pure pleasure. "The Room Got Heavy", watery percussion and electro pulses, sexy beats, Hubley reciting as if under hypnosis. Relaxation and trance. "Daphnia", a dreamy nine-minute watershed for piano and acoustic guitar with the odd gust of violins.

Port is in sight: here's "I Should've Known Better" playing the merry-go-round and "Watch Out For Me Ronnie" playing the wild child. What's missing is the knockout finale. "The Story Of Yo La Tengo", born from gushes of ambient distortion, well-placed drum hits, the guitar beginning to weave its pattern, melody and rock drive until death do them part, 12 minutes of homage that run on until exhaustion.

In 2009 came Popular Songs, another display of great class, if not quite overwhelming. The album is conceptually split into two parts, and that division becomes even more evident in the double-vinyl format.

The first nine tracks mirror the current state of the art in contemporary alt-rock. But this isn't an album built on big guitars, rather on big atmospheres, with peaks like the nocturnal "By Two's". On the same wavelength sit "I'm On My Way", a sort of revision of "Star Me Kitten" by Rem, and the melancholy "When It's Dark".

Then there's the cheerful side, well represented by the irresistible fuzz-boogie of "Something To Hide" and the amusing funky sixties echoes of "Periodically Triple Or Double". The desire to arrange a couple of tracks with string parts led the band to contact Richard Evans. The surprising results are the psychedelic "Here To Fall" and the carefree "If It's True", with further nods to the 60s. Even when crafting light pop tracks like "All Your Secrets" or "Avalon Or Someone Very Similar", they prove to be a cut above all those alt-pop-rock bands that have popped up everywhere over the last decade.

The three long tracks closing the record (which make up its ideal second half) represent three different sides of the Yo La Tengo psyche: "More Stars Than There Are In Heaven" is a slow-shoegaze piece that will delight fans of My Bloody Valentine; "The Fireside" recalls the ambient experiments of Brian Eno, with those acoustic guitar chords repeated ad libitum over a bed of sound effects that never overwhelms; while the cinematic feel of "The Fireside" stems from projects the band has recently pursued, having handled a series of soundtracks collected on the album released about a year earlier, They Shoot, We Score; here the influence of the work done for the road movie "Old Joy" is evident. The closing "And The Glitter Is Gone" is the final noise blast, almost 16 minutes that inject into the record the one ingredient still missing.

In mid-January 2013, Fade was released, the thirteenth album by the New Jersey trio. The main difference between Fade and the band's most recent records is the evident effort to streamline the instrumental traits, avoiding needless sprawl or overly tortuous paths. A further divergence comes from the reduced role of guitars, in favor of often more rarefied atmospheres and arrangements that barely conceal a desire for grandeur, with strings tending to take over on a couple of occasions. Once again the two longest tracks sit at the two ends of the album. "Ohm" is the instant classic everyone hopes to find on every new Kaplan and co. record; "Before We Run" instead represents the passionate, visceral farewell, the epilogue of a ten-track journey that is half a synthesis of what the band has done so far and half a launch into relaxed, harmonious, bucolic vignettes. "Is That Enough" is a prairie tale, one of those alt-country ideas revised Kaplan-style that make you fall in love from the very first listen; "Well You Better" is a delightfully enjoyable up-tempo number, able to get your hips moving even on the most miserable days; "Paddle Forward" is the most classically (and melancholically, in feel) alt-pop charge. "Stupid Things" is the bridge track toward the much-touted fade-out, which unfolds before our eyes in the acoustic wonders of "I'll Be Around", in the peace of mind of "Cornelia & Jane", and in the cinematic, landscape-like visions of "Two Trains" and "The Point Of It", backed by an unattainable class and elegance. Fade is a comforting record, a safe and inviolable home for all those who love the sounds and attitudes of Ira, Georgia and James. Produced by the expert John McEntire, who besides being an acclaimed producer is known in the scene as the drummer for Tortoise, Red Krayola and The Sea And Cake, Fade was recorded at Soma Studios in Chicago. A deluxe edition is planned, with a bonus seven-inch featuring covers of "I Saw The Light" by Todd Rundgren and "Move To California" by Times New Viking. The vinyl edition also comes with an exclusive coupon to download an additional eleven-minute jam.

On August 28, 2015, Stuff Like That There arrives, an album containing nine covers, three revisitations of previously released tracks, and two new originals. Exactly twenty-five years after Fakebook, what was their fourth studio record, Yo La Tengo repeat the experiment of releasing an album that alternates personalized revisions of other people's songs with self-penned tracks. For the occasion the trio becomes a quartet again: alongside Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew, guitarist Dave Schramm returns. The presence of two guitarists makes possible an impressive amount of six-string work, interlocking lines and filigree that chase each other throughout all fourteen tracks, slide and rhythm parts that at times give way to delicate electric phrasing, never going over the top, in an overall atmosphere as hushed as it is (at times perhaps too) controlled. Yes, because Stuff Like That There is a caressing record, made of brushes, tremolos, vibratos and the sweetest voices, in a sonic spectrum that moves from the nocturnal introspection of "Naples" to the alternative country of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (the original was by Hank Williams), all delivered with that cinematic gait typical of Yo La Tengo's work, among the few bands in the world able to tell stories through imaginary images (pardon the wordplay) and not just through sound. In some stretches drums aren't even featured (see the new recording of "Deeper Into Movies"), yet everything remains welded together with remarkable sturdiness, for a final result that comes across as rigorously subtle and cohesive.

Among the covers there's only one truly super-famous song, the Cure's hit "Friday I'm In Love", which undergoes the same treatment as almost all the chosen pieces: it's stripped of most of its original fervor, slowed down and rendered in a more "depressed" form. The same fate befalls "I Can Feel The Ice Melting", a Parliament track by George Clinton, reinterpreted here without the funk cadence that defined it. The Hoboken quartet range across an absolutely transversal span, reinterpreting stylistic opposites from the Lovin' Spoonful to Sun Ra, confirming (if further proof were needed) that omnivorous essence that in 1997 gave rise to the kaleidoscopic "I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One". The self-penned tracks, both the new ones and those revisited for the occasion, blend perfectly with the rest of the menu, through a decidedly folk-oriented treatment of the sounds. Anyone expecting a few more electric outbursts, or hoping to find experimental-shoegaze flourishes — things the band had accustomed us to — will come away disappointed: for some, Stuff Like That There might come across as a touch monochrome, but what should be appreciated here is the rigorous definition of a mood that starts from the analysis of structures often far removed from their own, hitting the target of characterizing the chosen songs through that nocturnal, cinematic style that is something of a Yo La Tengo trademark. A truly rare interchange in music, and in this case a perfectly successful one.

On There's A Riot Going On another slight revolution takes place, but it concerns methodology more than style: Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley indulge James McNew's passion for new recording technologies, experimenting with sounds and harmonic lines with uncertain outcomes and no clearly defined purpose, generating a series of kaleidoscopic improvisations and incidental lyrical fragments. With this unusual creative process, Yo La Tengo plunge the listener into chaos, faced with an album whose full comprehension seems improbable and taxing; music and voices seem almost to drift, leaving more than one casualty on the hard battlefield.

The reference to Sly & The Family Stone's historic album is strictly political: the divisions gripping the year 1971 are similar to today's, but over time the human spirit has been corroded by cynicism, indifference and a lack of any viable outlook. It wouldn't have made sense for the American band to voice these renewed generational fears with the fury of the past, or of that distant masterpiece with which they share a title and a banner.

And this is where the choice to let the music flow in complete freedom and indolence comes into play, never trying to channel inspiration into anything too defined. Chameleon-like as ever, Ira, Georgia and James leave nothing out of their improvised melting pot of styles; the approach is, as always, languid, listless, faintly nostalgic, but everything feels more intimate, confidential, as if modern rebellion could now be told not through shouts but through a faint whisper, through a pained yet never self-indulgent sonic fresco.

The long sequence of fifteen tracks on There's A Riot Going On tends toward evanescence, toward sublimation; the witty variety of styles explored over nearly thirty-five years of career peeks through sonic architectures that gradually lose their boundaries without ever finding themselves again.

Psychedelic fuzz laid over tribal rhythms ("You Are Here"), aching Velvet Underground-like abstractions ("She May, She Might"), sunny, almost hippie-ish folk melodies ("Polynesia #1"), pop lightness ("For You Too"), intriguing exoticisms soaked in electronics ("Let's Do It Wrong", "Esportes Casual") and the quirky, melancholy surf refrain of "Shades Of Blue" represent the most tangible soul of this new Yo La Tengo album. The rest is the fruit of digressions ("Ashes"), arpeggios ("Dream Dream Away"), fluid ambient textures ("Shortwave") and world-music contamination ("Out Of The Pool"), which toy with leftover jazz-lounge ("What Chance Have I Got") and doo-wop ("Forever"), letting a mix of tribal sounds, Latin music, world and Sun Ra-style jazz ferment ("Above The Sound").

The umpteenth miracle in the Yo La Tengo household happens thanks to the musicians' ability to remain coherent while also staying aware of their own expressive limits (yes, they do exist), holding together a set of songs rich in contrasts and oxymorons, without ever letting the countless, improvisation-laden sonic modulations spill over.

Toward the end of April 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, the band managed to reunite in their hometown of Hoboken, set up a microphone in the middle of the room, and began playing freely. From these sessions, which lasted about ten days in total, five long, abstract tracks survive, gathered on We Have Amnesia Sometimes. More than songs, they are sonic explorations around a handful of rock ideas, though the term must be understood in a very broad sense, encompassing the haziest psychedelia, the most mystical kraut-rock, and the most ambient, drone-laden post-rock. Works like this feel like instant albums interpreting reality almost in real time, though it's hard to tell how well they'll hold up over time. Yo La Tengo too wanted to take part in this still-unfolding story, releasing a work that will likely remain a one-off in their discography and which, while treading styles and solutions well known to fans of the most abstract and imaginative rock, still manages to reflect the disorienting fragility of 2020.

Seventeen albums and a handful of soundtracks, like Kelly Reichardt's "Old Joy" (2006), collected on They Shoot We Score (Egon, 2008), and Yo La Tengo resurface with This Stupid World (Matador, 2023), making an album in complete autonomy, with no outside support, in full indie-DIY spirit.

Right from the opener "Sinatra Drive Breakdown", what dominates are the (wonderful) contrasts, between whispers and guitar lashes, noise and slender drum figures, which in turn leave the low-frequency space to James McNew's bass strings. The next step brings us face to face with a songwriting gem, "Fallout", a manifesto of the Hoboken band's music whose chorus winds between almost imperceptible harmonies, surf grooves and riffs typical of that 90s indie-rock sound so familiar to Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh.

So Georgia Hubley on drums and Ira Kaplan on guitar, a couple in art and in life among the most intense on the indie scene – like Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk in Low, or Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore in Sonic Youth – balance vocal timbres and harmonies between noise-pop fervor and Americana ballads (“Aselestine”), indie-rock divertissement somewhere between Ted Leo and Pavement (“Tonight’s Episode”, “Until It Happens”) and perfect “Yo La Tengo” equations (“Apology Letter”).

In the album's final stretch, the decibels, the electricity and the emotional charge all rise under the lucky star of Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3, between noise-psych-rock-flavored rides and whispered vocals that lead from “Brain Capers” to the wall of feedback and the opening chorus of “This Stupid World”, all built on percussive drive and repetition.

The album closes sumptuously, poetically and evocatively with “Miles Away”, another rarefied gem of electronic-tinged beats and shoegaze textures, with Hubley's light voice dissolving pain and nostalgia into a litany that ultimately loses its words altogether.

This Stupid World is a stylistic and emotional world that breaks the fourth wall and makes the listener vibrate, returning to the fullness and completeness of a mature landmark like “Fade” (Matador, 2013) and giving us the band's best work in years.

In 2025 the soundtrack to the film Old Joy, albeit missing one track, “Memories Of Abilene”, was released on record. Just twenty-six minutes of ambient-Americana that stand up well even without the visual support. The elegant country-blues of “Driving Home”, with its velvety, gripping crescendo, and the pulsing guitar-and-rhythm beat of “End Credits”, are just two of the highlights of an album of aesthetic, contemplative sounds, a convincing fusion of country-western, road-blues and post-rock elements that adds another important piece to the band's career.

Contributions by Gabriele Benzing (“Summer Sun”), Ciro Frattini (“I’m Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass”), Claudio Lancia (“Popular Songs”, “Fade”, “Stuff Like That There”), Gianfanco Marmoro (“There’s A Riot Going On”, “Old Joy”), Antonio Silvestri (“We Have Amnesia Sometimes”), Maria Teresa Soldani (“This Stupid World”)

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