Yo La Tengo

I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997)

Yo La Tengo's fifth album was the record where their range became fully audible in a single listen — the seven-minute motorik drone of 'Moby Octopad,' the Velvet Underground-influenced pop of 'Stockholm Syndrome,' the full feedback assault of 'The Lie and How We Told It,' all without the shifts feeling discontinuous. Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley's vocal interplay creates an intimacy that the more aggressive tracks never fully dissipate; 'Sugarcube' became the band's closest approach to a radio hit, a deadpan guitar pop song with a hook so efficient it sounded accidental. The album demonstrated that the Velvet Underground's legacy could be developed rather than just imitated, that noise and tenderness could coexist within a single sustained artistic project.

Sleeve notes

I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One · 1997

Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley have been making records together since 1984, and the longevity is itself an argument: very few bands maintain the quality, curiosity, and formal variety that Yo La Tengo has managed across four decades. Their catalog moves between noise rock, gentle country-inflected folk, electronic experimentation, and long droning improvisation — sometimes within the same record, as on I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997), which is as good as any album released in its decade.

The Hoboken, New Jersey basement-to-world-stage trajectory is the indie music origin story made literal. Kaplan's guitar playing — which can be an eleven-minute noise piece or a two-minute jangly pop song, depending on the need — and Hubley's drumming, understated and precise, give the band a range that few bands manage without it sounding like a collection of projects. Their cover work, which includes versions of songs that surpass the originals, demonstrates a listening quality as important as any creative instinct.