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Salon.com on Nuclear War: Sun Ra originally recorded the song in 1982, three years after the nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island (Ra's "Arkestra" was based in nearby Philadelphia), and with the Cold War at full chill. Perhaps the most underrated composer and pianist in the history of jazz, Sun Ra's recording of "Nuclear War" was almost impossible to find over the last decade until Atavistic reissued it in 2002, shortly before the song started showing up in Yo La Tengo's live shows.
The first of Yo La Tengo's four adaptations is all drums and chanting, and serves as the foundation for various (and you can't get much more various) guest artists to build upon. The second track features a regular children's crusade of the band's giggling nieces and nephews that chant the response to the lyrics. And then there is the spookily taut remix of the kiddie version by New York hip-hop phenomenon Mike Ladd, without the giggles.
Guesting on the third version is a whole slew of New York jazz musicians. Unsurprisingly, this track comes closest to the original. Joining McNew and Hubley are Josh Modell (of Antietam) on bongos and percussionist Susie Ibarra, who maintains a low, seasick rhythm under the main groove. Roy Campbell (trumpet), Sabir Mateen (sax), and Daniel Carter (sax) make up the horn section and trade some loose, melodic solos before coming together in an all-too-short three-way jam, after which the song trails off to an elegiac finale.
You don't buy a Swiss Army knife for the tiny tweezers, and "Nuclear War" is certainly not the most essential record in the Yo La Tengo catalog. It's a lot of fun, though, and makes an worthy addition to an already attractive package.
Wiki explains Sounds: The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is a score written by Yo La Tengo for filmmaker Jean Painlevé. It contains 78 minutes of instrumental music to accompany his eight short documentary-style films shot underwater. The live performances are known as “The Sounds of Science.” The program debuted in 2001 at the San Francisco Film Festival. The entire score has been performed approximately twelve times. The band had not heard of Painlevé before being asked to work on the project nor did the band view the films much before writing the music.[1]
What was different was that it was all sound for the most part. There was melody involved in the pieces, but it was really all about mood. There's so much of that in the songs we work on anyway, but to think only about the way the mood was developing was a big difference. The songs tend to start the same way with just the three of us kind of playing and seeing what comes out, but once we had something that we were working on, it was a lot different, and the pieces were all 10 minutes long![2]
The album's cover photos are from the accompanying films. The album artwork was designed by Jim Woodring and Jad Fair.
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