Editing Yo La Tengo (section)

===Early Matador period, 1993–2000===
In 1993, Yo La Tengo began their partnership with [[Matador Records]], releasing a 7" and CD5 of the song "Shaker" which the band recorded with John Siket in New Jersey. The following LP, 1993's ''[[Painful (album)|Painful]]'', was also the beginning of the band's fruitful creative partnership with producer Roger Moutenot, who has produced all of their subsequent albums up until 2013's ''[[Fade (Yo La Tengo album)|Fade]]'', which was produced by [[John McEntire]]. ''Painful'' is the first Yo La Tengo album to feature James McNew on every song. Ira Kaplan explains:{{cquote|I think this group really started when we made the record ''Painful''. . . . ''Painful'' was the first record that we made as the three of us, and I think it sounds different from the things that came before it. Even though I can see connections with the earlier records and things we've done since, it really seems like mostly we've built on that record. Anything from before then is really, really different to me. Since ''Painful'', I think we've gotten more confident and more willing to trust ourselves and trust each other, and probably better at dealing with things that go wrong.<ref>{{cite web|last=Murray |first=Noel |url=https://www.avclub.com/ira-kaplan-1798217717 |title=Ira Kaplan &#124; Music |publisher=The A.V. Club |date=September 15, 2009 |access-date=February 17, 2012}}</ref>}}

[[Rob Sheffield]], writing in ''[[The New Rolling Stone Album Guide]]'' remarked that McNew "became an essential part of the sound on ''Painful'', the 1993 album that kept every promise Yo La Tengo ever made and blew their previous highlights away."<ref name=RSguide>{{cite book |chapter=Yo La Tengo |pages=[https://archive.org/details/newrollingstonea00brac/page/896 896–897] |first=Rob |last=Sheffield |author-link=Rob Sheffield |editor1-last=Brackett |editor1-first=Nathan |editor2-last=Hoard |editor2-first=Christian |title=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide |year=2004 |publisher=Fireside |location=London |isbn=0-7432-0169-8 |title-link=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide }} Portions posted at {{cite magazine |magazine=Rolling Stone  |title=Yo La Tengo > Biography |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/yolatengo/biography |access-date=11 August 2009 |url-status=dead  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207000716/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/yolatengo/biography |archive-date=7 December 2008 }}</ref> Critical reaction was quite positive, with reviewer [[Stephen Thomas Erlewine]] calling it "a subtly addicting album."<ref>{{AllMusic |class=album |tab=review |id=r191435 |label=''Painful'' Yo La Tengo > Review |first=Stephen Thomas |last=Erlewine |author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |access-date=11 August 2009 }}</ref> Robert Christgau also praised the group once again, writing in his review that Yo La Tengo is "always friendly. This is not the forbidding experimentation of an aspiring vanguard. This is the fooling around of folks who like to go out on Saturday night and make some noise—and then go home humming it."<ref name="robertchristgau.com"/> The band released ''[[Electr-O-Pura]]'' in 1995 to similar acclaim. For the first time, all songs were credited to the band as a whole rather than individual members; this became the norm for all future releases.

In 1996 the band had a role in the movie [[I Shot Andy Warhol]] as an anonymous version of the Velvet Underground,<ref>{{Citation |title=I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) - IMDb |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116594/fullcredits |access-date=2024-02-10}}</ref> a Warhol-associated band to whom Yo La Tengo were often compared in their early years.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Yo La Tengo |url=https://www.aliasrecords.com/artists/yo-la-tengo/ |access-date=2024-02-10 |website=Alias Records |language=en-US}}</ref>

The band's 1997 LP ''[[I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One]]'' synthesized the group's eclectic combination of folk, [[punk rock]], [[shoegazing]], long instrumental noise-jams, and [[electronic music]] into a sprawling, multi-faceted style. Critical reaction was extremely positive; [[Pitchfork Media|Pitchfork]] awarded the album a 9.7 out of 10,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/23364-i-can-hear-the-heart-beating-as-one |title=Record Reviews: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One |date=February 14, 2008 |access-date=February 17, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080214070901/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/23364-i-can-hear-the-heart-beating-as-one |archive-date=February 14, 2008 }}</ref> and [[AllMusic]] reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it was "arguably Yo La Tengo's finest and most coherent album to date."<ref>{{AllMusic |class=album |tab=review |id=r260270 |label=''I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One'' Yo La Tengo > Review |first=Stephen Thomas |last=Erlewine |author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |access-date=11 August 2009 }}</ref> Kaplan recalled a turning point in the band's musical progression:{{cquote|I think after ''Electr–O-Pura'' we've had a direction of trying not to worry too hard about what the next album is going to sound like. Everything we've ever played on we just do whatever seems right at the moment, we just write a bunch of songs, and then go one baby step at the time and just do what seems right.<ref name="drownedinsound.com"/>}}

With their critical reputation higher than ever before, the band toured extensively and their fan base continued to grow. In 1998, they collaborated with [[Jad Fair]] and released the album ''[[Strange but True (album)|Strange but True]]'' to mixed reviews. Yo La Tengo had a cameo role as a [[Salvation Army]] band in the 1998 [[Hal Hartley]] film ''[[The Book of Life (1998 film)|The Book of Life]]'', and feature on its 1999 soundtrack release.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://halhartley.com/shop/product/details/1947/the-book-of-life-soundtrack|title=halhartley.com|access-date=2018-03-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180317164910/http://halhartley.com/shop/product/details/1947/the-book-of-life-soundtrack|archive-date=2018-03-17|url-status=dead}}</ref> The band entered the studio again in late 1999 to record their ninth LP. ''[[And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out]]'' was released in February 2000 to a warm reception. The album features some intimate songs with hushed, varied instrumentation and includes the 17-minute meditation "Night Falls On Hoboken".