Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One (2LP, 25th anniversary, yellow vinyl) [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

Matador's 25th anniversary edition spreads the album over two yellow LPs with a Japanese-style obi strip. It's the Hoboken trio's most beloved record, moving from fuzz-rock to bossa nova to hushed ballads with "Autumn Sweater," "Sugarcube" and "Stockholm Syndrome" along the way.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Yellow vinyl
• 25th anniversary edition
• Obi strip

About the album

Yo La Tengo took their name from a baseball yarn about a 1962 New York Mets outfielder who learned to shout "I've got it" in Spanish to avoid collisions, and was promptly flattened by a teammate who didn't speak Spanish. By 1997, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew had been quietly getting it for years, and this was the album where everybody else did too.

It's a record that refuses to sit in one place. "Sugarcube" is a burst of buzzing guitar pop, "Autumn Sweater" glows on a hushed organ and drum-machine pulse, and "Stockholm Syndrome" gives McNew a tender lead vocal. "Moby Octopad" stretches out on a hypnotic groove, "Little Honda" turns The Beach Boys into a fuzz workout, and the long "Spec Bebop" drifts into pure noise before the gentle "My Little Corner Of The World" sends everyone home.

Twenty-five years on, it's the album most fans point to first when they explain why they love this band. Kaplan and Hubley have been married for most of that time, which might explain why the songs about domestic life sound so lived-in.

Also at Kops: more Yo La Tengo on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador (cat# OLE222LP), a reissue of the 1997 album.