Yo La Tengo
By: Thomas Hannan
Touring this week:
Concorde 2, Brighton - Wednesday 12/9/07, 19:30 (sharp!)
Tickets: £12.00 face value, available HERE (subject to booking fee).
Why is this worthy of my time and money?: I think over the past seven years, you and I have built up a kind of trust. And as such, given that the morning after witnessing Yo La Tengo perform their soundtracks to various short films by infamous French nature documentary maker Jean Painleve (predating David Attenborough and the like by decaded), I am still pretty much in total awe of the whole thing to the extent that I'm finding it difficult to get anything done, you should really, really try your hardest to make sure your frame is in attendance for the final Brighton show. Yo La Tengo's playing of their 'Sounds of Science' soundtrack is both beautifully soft and painfully intense at different, appropriate moments, but they're totally aware that the films, and not their egos, are the star here. Painleve's overpowering love and anthropomorphising of the actions of algae, seahorses, jellyfish and all kinds of underwater curios ('The Love Life of the Octopus' is a particular favourite) make for startlingly entertaining and informative works not devoid of their own beauty, matched all the way by the marvellous trio's deft musicianship.
Artists in this article: Yo La Tengo