Nuclear War

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A Sun Ra song turned on its head by pioneers of emo-rock into a pseudo-hip-hop track, Nuclear War is... a little bit weird. Here's the basic story, there's four tracks which are all different versions of the same Sun Ra anti-nuclear protest song. While the original track recorded in 1982 featured Ra's Arkestra doing the response to his punctuated calls, Yo La Tengo uses children to chant, "Nuclear war, it's a motherfucker/ If they push that button, your ass gotta go," on version two. Version three employs Susie Ibarra's neuvo-free-jazz drums and the horns of Roy Campbell Junior, Daniel Carter, and Sabir Mateen. Three is the most satisfying of the versions with the horn section effectively squelching, squaking, and bopping for a good six minutes providing a welcome relief to the monotonous chant. Post-solo the group garners back their steam and begins the chant again this time revitalized by a spiritual jazz backing and someone's goofy rendition of Louis Amstrong's voice. Version four is a remix by Mike Ladd sourcing all three previous tracks. Ladd throws an electro-bass line under the kid's chant, breaks the all out free-drums into some respectable breaks, and just makes this production sound a little more polished than before. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the production on this album is definitely from the lo-fi school of mixing. Recording of these sessions sounds like an after thought with no clear mix. There's a garage sound to this album making it an even odder artifact in Yo La Tengo's catalog. For a band that started punk, went Simon and Garfunkel with Fakebook, took that into a little more experimental noise, then went IDM with an album of remixes: Nuclear War's turn to jazz covered ala hip-hop is the most enigmatic dispatch from this trio so far.