Ohm

By way of illustration of the piece below on YLT, there's a somewhat stripped-back version of 'Ohm' here 

But it was even more restrained and lambent last night.

You don't really need more than one chord, do you?

YLT: close, but not quite top five...

Yo La Tengo played a fine gig at the De la Warr Pavilion last night, and one which seems to be getting better in retrospect.

It was excellent in parts – and transcendentally superb in places.

But it was hobbled by their chosen set structure and some of its longeurs left me looking at my watch.

They chose to play the first half mainly sitting down with acoustic guitars. When there were drums, Georgia Hubley used brushes on a cutdown set. The band's vulnerable and occasionally (and endearingly) wonky vocals high and exposed in the mix. When this approach worked best it was magical.

They opened with a beautifully poised and restrained take on 'Ohm', the first and finest track on the Fade album. There couldn't have been a better start: cutting away the album version's Krautrock chug brought out its glorious humanist lyric of loss and joy in living:

But nothing ever stays the same.
Nothing's explained.
The stronger the wind, the faster we'll fly.
'Cause this is it, for all we know.
So say good night to me
And lose no more time:

No time
Resisting the flow.

When Georgia touched her cymbal for the first time with a brush 4 or 5 minutes in it was like a temple bell sounding...

But, though it may be churlish of me, a full set of their restrained and sensitive side got to be a bit much.

And then, post interval, it was all the other way: full kit, churning guitar noise, vocals often submerged, your reviewer's ears ringing as he writes...

Again, that's obviously part of what I presume most YLT fans like about the band, but I wish they'd mixed it up a bit more.

Towards the end they came back to a different version of 'Ohm', which restored its chunkier muscles – and reinforced its claim on 'song of 2013' in my book. But, before that, they'd brought out the strength of some of the other songs on Fade which could easily be overshadowed. I  was particularly taken by their surging rendition of 'Paddle Forward', which edges perilously close lyrically to 'Eden On The Line' territory:

Ship of fools,
We've come unmoored.
Riptide pulling,

Pulling away from the shore.
But we feel safe inside,
Not a wave in sight.
Hang on tight.
There's still time.

The water's fine.

I'm sure the thing to do is concentrate on what Yo La Tengo do well, rather than regret that they're not something else. Of course, they're not really showmen, even after 30 years spent in this game, as Ira Kaplan reminded us at one point. 

It was a slightly odd, rather than rock-god, moment towards the end when he lifted his guitar into the air, held it away from him, touching it on his back and then leg, sustaining a fed-back chord. But then they're supposed to be the slightly nerdy bunch of rock fans next door. They are, in some ways, inheritors of The Velvets' mantle, but don't expect Lou Reed's monomania and 'just watch me now' conviction.

Why do I keep resisting the flow? It was a fine show.

White smoke delayed

There will be best of year lists at some point, but the judges are still in conclave.

I'm off to see Yo La Tengo for the first time tonight, along the coast in Bexhill. They might slip into the frame in what has been a very competitive year for concerts and also remind me of the undoubted strengths of Fade, the record they released in January.

It strikes me that there have been quite a few very good albums this year, but not many great ones. I suppose it was ever thus. I need to listen to some candidates again.

And then there's Kurt Vile to see at the Concorde on the 17th. This could go to the wire...

A close look at a Dylan classic

I have been contemplating for some time writing a book about Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding album, as a follow-up to the worldwide publishing sensation that is Saint Dominic's Flashback.

I have some doubts: there is, of course, a lot more stuff about Dylan and his music out there already than there is about Van; and there are not many of the very few people involved in making JWH who are still alive to ask about it.

But I do feel that it is a relatively neglected album. There has been a great deal attention paid to the wild mercury sound of 1965-66, to the Basement Tapes, and now (with the release of The Bootleg Series Volume 10) to the fascinating but rather lesser work of Self Portrait and New Morning. Meanwhile, John Wesley Harding sits there enigmatically in its own space, refusing to draw attention to itself...

A book about the album would need to take a very close look at its contents, given that there is less to say about how it was made. I thought I'd have a test run by writing about one of the best songs on it, 'I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine' and you can see 4000 or so words on the subject here.

I'd be very glad of any comments - worth pursuing?

Meanwhile, in the doldrums...

Over three weeks since my last post and I'm rather lacking in inspiration. Do you have spells when music loses its flavour somehow? It's been a while since I've been knocked out by something new on record and the only gig I had booked this month - John Smith at the Unitarian Church in Brighton last Saturday - struck me as good rather than astonishing...

The first records I've bought in over a month are a new EP from Kurt Vile, It's A Big World Out There (And I am Scared), and Yo La Tengo's new 7", 'Super Kiwi', both ordered on automatic pilot, because I'll be seeing them both in December. They're both sounding pretty good, chugging along nicely. But, as you'd expect from out-takes from their respective latest albums, there's nothing groundbreaking about them.

My jaundiced mood is hardly helped by the news of Roy Harper's criminal charges. One shouldn't prejudge, of course, but it's hard not to feel let down - and disappointed to realise that his wistful concluding remarks at the Festival Hall last month were probably less to do with intimations of mortality than an expectation of being banged up.

Gloom, doom and more gloom - and that's before we get on to Lou Reed checking out way too soon since we last spoke...

I'll be back soon - and promise to cheer up before tackling the best of 2013 lists.