If
Yo La Tengo had never developed a knack for songwriting, they could have enjoyed an admirable career as one of the world's best and most distinctive cover bands. They have an unerring instinct for picking great songs, and they know how to bring enough of their own style and personality into the work that it retains the qualities that made it worthy in the first place while also reflecting their own sensibilities.
Sleepless Night is a six-song EP that feels like a miniature version of 1990's
Fakebook (or its sibling, 2015's
Stuff Like That There), featuring five low-key covers alongside one new tune, "Bleeding." It was originally compiled for an exhibition by Japanese artist and
YLT fan
Yoshitomo Nara and was drawn from a variety of sources (one track dating back to the sessions for 2000's
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out), though it all sounds of one piece in its gentle melodicism and simple affection for the material. Of course, it's not at all hard to get fine results from songs by
the Byrds ("Wasn't Born to Follow"),
Bob Dylan ("It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"), or
the Louvin Brothers ("Blues Stay Away"), yet that doesn't take anything from the subtle joy of their performances or the fresh thinking they bring to the arrangements (especially the ghostly, drone-laden vibe of "It Takes a Lot to Laugh," transforming
Dylan's cocky grin into something ethereal and just a bit forbidding). "Bleeding" doesn't sound like one of
Yo La Tengo's great songs in this context, but it's certainly a good one, hitting a sweet spot between their melodic side and the free-form clouds of sound they conjured on
We Have Amnesia Sometimes, released just a few months earlier. And if
the Flying Machine's "Smile a Little Smile for Me" always seemed like unremarkable fluff from some forgotten one-hit wonders,
Ira Kaplan's vocal reworks it into something deeper and more affecting than you'd expect.
Sleepless Night is as warm and comforting as a cup of hot chocolate, and while it hardly seems like a major work (and it isn't), it's thoroughly enjoyable and a reminder that you can hardly do better than
Yo La Tengo in making a playlist of treasured oldies. ~ Mark Deming
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