Yo La Tengo: Old Joy (soundtrack, transparent pink vinyl) [MISSISSIPPI]

Why you'll love it

This transparent pink pressing puts Yo La Tengo's quiet, rolling film score on vinyl through Portland's Mississippi Records. It's six pieces of patient, instrumental Yo La Tengo, from "Leaving Home" to an alternate take of the same theme.

This edition

• Transparent pink vinyl

About the album

Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy is a small film about two old friends driving into the Oregon woods in search of some hot springs, and it needed music that could keep pace with long stretches of road and trees. Yo La Tengo, the Hoboken trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew, were the right band for the job: they have always been as comfortable drifting as they are rocking out.

The score is gentle and spacious. "Leaving Home" sets out a warm, looping guitar theme, "Getting Lost" and "Path To Springs" wander off the map with it, and "Driving Home" turns for home. "End Credits" folds the theme up neatly, and the closing "Leaving Home (Alternate Version)" offers another look at where it all started. It's the side of the band that fans of their long instrumental pieces and late-night records will know and love, with plenty of space between the notes.

Yo La Tengo have long been called the quintessential critics' band, and the band's name comes from a baseball story about two outfielders who couldn't agree who had the catch. Happily there's no confusion here; this one's yours.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Mississippi Records (cat# MRI-213), a reissue of the 2006 soundtrack.