THE AMERICAN ANALOG SET

Know by heart

LP/CD, Tigerstyle

It is late in the evening, your eyes are hurting from too many hours in front of the computer and the television. It is pitch dark out there, you are tired, but not so tired, that you already want to go to sleep. You just want to rest your eyes and brush off that weary head of yours. Now it is time for this record. Its soft, flowing melodies and beautiful harmonies will lull you to a wonderful, light sleep that is made to enjoy. When the record is over, you’ll open your eyes relaxed but still tired enough to enjoy falling asleep later on.

The span of time between one album by Yo La Tengo until the next one is always too long. I know it is unfair to compare one band to another, especially if the comparer is so far above and away as far as genius, originality and status is concerned. I mean, I could write pages upon pages about Yo La Tengo, and the best I can come up with about The American Analog Set is a blunt comparison. Moreover, a comparison, that will be relativated by derogatory remarks about The American Analog Set such as “…but without the epic spaciousness and illuminating emotionality” or “……but lacking in broadness of vision and technical superiority.” What can I say, life is unfair.

Maybe it is the slow pace of the tracks with their sleep-inducing beat (a compliment in the Yo La Tengo-Universe, see the song “Sleeping Pill” on “May I sing with me”) that reminds. Well, actually it is an emotionally stabilizing rhythm that lays a solid basis of light vibration underneath the slowly flowing melodies and harmonies, even when the songs are well above 90 bpm. Maybe it is the soft male/female-singing that reminds so much of the Yo La Tengo. On the most positive side, it could be the strong sense of emotional togetherness and intimacy that seeps through the songs, which of course has already been emulated by Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan, them being married an all that. “I walk the streets for hours like some stupid jerk” – anybody who writes down these lines and means them has to have been in love at least once. On the other hand, the song these lines come from is called “The Postman” so maybe I am overinterpreting the same way I am overstressing the comparison to Yo La Tengo. Then again, if some stupid lines invigorate the feeling of a lonely love-ballad in me, then, no matter what the lyrics really are about, the song is about love. But then, every song on “know by heart” is about love.

Of course the songs are about love. Why do you think the cinch-cables on the cover form a heart? Well, on the backcover they form a noose, but maybe that is to show that there is always a different side to everything. Me, I prefer to think about love rather then death. Funnily enough, in movies I prefer death as a theme, but that is something completely different. Anyway, you will be able to enjoy this record. Think about the dark, endless nightskies in Texas, about fresh air and your loved ones. Forget about anger and worries. Relax. Not a lot of records can make you do that and this is way better than any New Age CD, because there is the added feeling of realness, of real music by real people.

12/2001