Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One (2LP) [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set comes with printed inner sleeves and a download code. Pitchfork gave it 9.7, it placed fifth in the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll for 1997, and Rolling Stone counts it among the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Printed inner sleeves
• Download card included
• Lacquers cut by Wes Garland
• Lyrics included

About the album

Yo La Tengo took their name from a baseball story about an outfield mix-up, and by their eighth album Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew had turned changing positions into an art. Feedback squalls, bossa nova murmurs, garage rock and hushed ballads all sit side by side here, and it never sounds like anyone but them.

Roger Moutenot produced again, recording at House of David in Nashville. "Sugarcube" is a burst of fuzzy pop, "Autumn Sweater" whispers over organ and a soft shuffle, and "Stockholm Syndrome" puts McNew's gentle voice up front. They cover the Beach Boys' "Little Honda" in a wall of fuzz, the instrumental "Spec Bebop" drifts for more than ten minutes, and Hubley closes with a sweet take on "My Little Corner of the World."

Pitchfork later called it the band's first true masterpiece, and it keeps turning up on 90s best-of lists from Spin, Paste and Rolling Stone. Kaplan and Hubley are a married couple who have made music together for four decades, which is more harmony than most of us manage choosing a takeaway.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Matador (cat# OLE-222-0), a reissue of the 1997 album.