Yo La Tengo dropped “Bleeding” today, the second single from their forthcoming EP Sleepless Night, out on Oct. 9 via Matador. The band released the EP’s first single—a cover of The Byrds’ “Wasn’t Born to Follow”—last month.
While the rest of the Sleepless Night tracklist includes covers of Bob Dylan and The Flying Machine, “Bleeding” is the only original song on this release. The track was recorded in Hoboken and takes on a quiet presence, eventually getting swept up by scratchy ambience in the final 40 seconds.
Their EP was originally released as part of a LACMA exhibition, with artist Yoshitomo Nara handpicking the songs.
“We met Yoshitomo Nara in 2003, would see him at his art shows and our concerts,” Ira Kaplan said. “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 favorite songs as part of a deluxe edition. 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. Here are the six songs we contributed to the LACMA record, chosen in collaboration with Nara.”
Listen to “Bleeding” below, and preorder Sleepless Night here. Keep scrolling to listen to the group’s 1995 performance from the Paste archives.