Yo La Tengo announce new EP, 'Sleepless Night' | NME

Yo La Tengo have announced their second EP within three months, ‘Sleepless Night’, set for release later this year.

‘Sleepless Night’ will comprise six tracks, five of which will be covers from the catalogues of The Byrds, The Delmore Brothers, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Lane and The Flying Machine. The EP will be released October 9 and follows on from their ambient EP, ‘We Have Amnesia Sometimes’, which arrived in mid-July.

The tracks on ‘Sleepless Night’ were first released as part of an album included within a limited-edition catalogue for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition for Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.

“To make the catalogue of his 2020 exhibit at LACMA more personal, the idea came up to include an LP of some of Nara’s favourite songs as part of a deluxe edition,” Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan explained in a statement.

“We were asked to provide one side of the LP (and that one track be a new composition), with the other side being another six songs selected by Nara, in their original versions.”

To coincide with the EP announcement, the group have shared ‘Wasn’t Born To Follow’, a cover of the ’60s track from The Byrds. Listen to it below:

“‘Wasn’t Born to Follow’ was recorded by Gene Holder as part of the sessions that resulted in ‘Stuff Like That There‘.

“I’m sure I heard the Byrds’ song for the first time when my mom took me and a bunch of my friends to see Easy Rider,” Kaplan said.

The ‘Sleepless Night’ tracklist is:

1. ‘Blues Stay Away’
2. ‘Wasn’t Born to Follow’
3. ‘Roll On Babe’
4. ‘It Takes a Lot to Laugh’
5. ‘Bleeding’
6. ‘Smile a Little Smile for Me’