Yo La Tengo Try Their Hands at Strings on 'Popular Songs'

If you've checked out Yo La Tengo's latest release, 'Popular Songs,' we bet that you noticed a few new additions to the Hoboken, N.J. band's repertoire. A handful of the songs have more of an organ-driven sound to them, a fact that lead singer/guitarist Ira Kaplan says wasn't intentional, but could be due to the fact that they plunked down some money for a Hammond organ. But also making a striking appearance this time around are string arrangements on 'Here to Fall' and 'If It's True.'

"That was one of the earliest things we had," Kaplan tells Spinner of the song 'Here To Fall.' "Generally, we don't work on new songs when we're not writing for a record, but occasionally, something happens and we will work on something. And for some reason, in rehearsal we were playing something new -- we did it once or twice and it stayed in everyone's brain for a couple of years. Meanwhile, while we were rehearsing it, we used some MIDI thing where we could play some string section, where we had crappy sounding fake strings and thought it sounded promising. It certainly didn't sound good but pointed to something that might sound good."

Kaplan and company made a list of composers they'd like to work with to combat that "crappy" sound, and sent out requests to six potential collaborators. "Only one person responded and that was [veteran R&B arranger] Richard Evans," Kaplan says. "We tracked him down through the internet." They originally had just wanted him for 'If It's True' but once he said he was game, they knew they needed him for at least one more track. "That's where the idea of adding it to 'Here to Fall.' Once we knew we made contact with him, we knew we couldn't let him off that easy."

Yo La Tengo kicks off their North American fall tour on Sept. 15 at Burlington, Vt.'s Higher Ground. In November they'll hit Europe then Japan in December. Sadly, the band will not being doing their traditional shows during the eight nights of Hanukkah this year.