Wrestling Sitting On His Chest

Track Of The Month


Yo La Tengo "I Heard You Looking"
(from the album "Painful," Matador 1993)

few days ago, stopping in front of the Twenty-three of the window (old record store in the city center), I noticed in the second floor, a display full of CD "spotted" Cat Power, Bonnie Prince Billy, Arctic Monkeys, Bauhaus, and so, in practice most of the catalogs of Matador, 4AD, and Domino. All the modest sum of eight euro per piece. The choice, of course, is difficult, and it happens to me only has enough money to buy a single album. In one corner, but I see a copy of "Prisoners of Love", complete retrospective of Yo La Tengo.
Who's Yo La Tengo? A trio of Hoboken, New Jersey, twenty-five years to the sounds around the world, beautiful public disks, and is cited as a source of inspiration for many contemporary indie bands. And in Italy, Obviously, no one ranks them. Their album? Unavailable. Their concerts? Rare in our country. But even so, great. Although he
their last, great job, "I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass," I know little of their previous career. So, without ado I bring home the compilation in question, two for the price of a compact.
What I can say is that this is one of the best bargains "record" he has ever done: as the subtitle says, in fact, this is a sparkling collection of small gems of psychedelic guitar pop, with shades ranging from folk to blues, encroaching even more minimal electronics. But the Song, the piece that four days is constantly in repeat mode in my player, "I Heard You Looking": seven minutes of pure instrumental magic, in which spirits are fifteen years of indie rock, roughly in that period of time ranging 1980 to 1995.
Believe. In the opening part of a distorted guitar around but discreet, to recall the melodic loops of Pavement, but also what Husker Du were making at the end of his career, with a hint of folk, to let the rhythm section, which gives things a notable aspect of the first Dinosaur Jr. as codeine. But it is not over, because the phrasing carrier is gradually fading, more free, up to bring to mind Sonic Youth and the noise, but also Television, a major source of inspiration for our own. Up to go back, to recoil, to resume the reins of the situation for a moment as if we had stopped for a little digression. And believe me, this is one of those little masterpieces in which the voice is not needed.

"I Heard You Looking" (live at Bush Hall, London, 2006)