Yo La Tengo have released a new album of instrumental tracks.
Titled We Have Amnesia Sometimes, the album is available via the band’s Bandcamp page, which was launched earlier this week. It was recorded over the course of 10 days in late April and early May.
The band have been uploading a new song from the five-track album each day since the Bandcamp page was set up. The first track, ‘James And Ira Demonstrate Mysticism And Some Confusion Holds’, went up on Monday.
"If you’ve spent any time hanging out with us at our rehearsal space in Hoboken — that pretty much covers none of you — you’ve heard us playing formlessly (he said, trying to sidestep the word ‘improvising’)," the band’s Ira Kaplan said in a statement about how the album came about. "Most of the songs we’ve written in the last 25 years have begun that way, but often we do it for no other reason than to push away the outside world.
"In late April, with the outside world weighing on everybody, we determined that the three of us could assemble in Hoboken without disobeying the rules laid out by Governor Murphy, and resumed… ‘practicing’ hardly describes it, because we’ve done no practicing per se, and anyway what would we be practicing for… playing. James set up one microphone in the middle of the room in case we stumbled on something useful for the future. Instead we decided to release some of the things we did right now."
To mark the album’s release, Yo La Tengo will play two ticketed streamed performances via Noonchorus tomorrow (July 18) at 2am BST and on Sunday (July 19) at 6pm BST. The sets will consist of 30 to 45-minute performances of music made in the improvisatory style of the new album. Tickets are available here, and all proceeds from the two shows will go to the Brennan Center For Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute fighting for democracy.
We Have Amnesia Sometimes is out now.
