It’s a cotton revolution for Yo La Tengo. After Stuff Like That There (2015), in which they smoothly revisited tracks of their own or from others, this fifteenth album feels much more sedated. Led since 1986 by the couple Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, the band are reunited here in a trio with bassist James McNew, and goes into a quiet and peaceful hibernation. The boiled down instrumentation navigates here and there on Shoegazian vapours (What Chance Have I Got, Dream Dream Away), towards tender folk strings (She May, She Might) and bossa backwashes (Esportes Casual), even sleeping under the Tropics (Polynesia #1). Maracas, warm and slow percussions, low and soft voices, bass in slow motion, and whispering guitars draw up a meditative opus, closer to Alice Coltrane than the mad and poisonous funk of Sly & The Family Stone’s There’s A Riot Going On (1971). © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz