Editorial Reviews
Music Review:
Music Review
Irma on Canvas: Exhibition, Vol. 1
Los Gitanos Cantan a Federico García Lorca [Import]
Amazon.com
Any album with Summer Sun as its title and "Beach Party Tonight" as the opening track has to be the soundtrack of tanned flesh, cold beer, and killer waves, right? Not if it’s the product of three New Jersey bohos who know, from personal experience or their record collections, that summer is also the place to find surfers afraid of the water and sun-poisoned girls afraid of going home alone, again. Although not quite as cohesive or instantly captivating as the band’s 2000 breakthrough, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, Summer Sun is crafted from a similar hushed and hypnotic mold. Most of the 13 songs are built on a simple foundation of lo-fi guitar, bass, and brushed drums, then finished off with swirling horns, insistent piano figures, or organ. Especially good are the Pet Sounds-like pocket symphony "Tiny Birds," the beat-groove-powered "Moonrock Mambo," and the album-closing cover of Big Star’s "Take Care." This last song is re-imagined as a country lament with pleading pedal-steel guitar and singer Georgia Hubley sounding like Nico fronting a lounge band on the boardwalk of a beach town headed toward post-Labor Day oblivion. Ah, summer. --Keith Moerer
Album Description
A subtle stylistic shift from its predecessor (And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out). Upbeat, swinging, and sweet, but no less haunting. 'An ethereal wonder' - US News And World Report. 'Yo La Tengo has divided its devotion to the extremes of popular music, playing sweetly melodic pop songs and feedback-driven noise-rock with equally mesmerizing results'. 13 tracks packaged in a Digipak. Matador. 2003.