Summer Sun

Summer Sun is the tenth studio album by American indie rock band Yo La Tengo, released on April 8, 2003.

Recording

Summer Sun was recorded in Nashville, United States. The album was mixed at Shelter Island in New York.

Content

Georgia Hubley's mother, Faith Hubley, died right before the band started working on the album. The Hubley family piano went into Yo La Tengo's practice space in Jersey City, and became the center piece for the sound of the album.

On the album's style, The A.V. Club reviewer Keith Phipps notes that "Summer Sun finds Yo La Tengo in a twilight mood, interspersing instrumentals and one elongated jam (the tellingly titled 'Let's Be Still') between atmospheric, quietly ingratiating pop songs."

Album cover

The album is a double exposure shot taken in a New Jersey parking lot.

Despite the title of the album, the cover shows the band wearing Winter coats. When asked about this odd juxtaposition, guitarist Ira Kaplan said: "We really need to get together with the Matador art department about that. We submitted eight rolls of film containing one shot after another of us in bathing suits. At the end of the session, the photographer requested one shot of us in our winter coats, "for his personal collection" we were assured. Imagine our dismay when the album came out."

Summer

Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, falling between spring and autumn. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day-length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice. The date of the beginning of summer varies according to climate, tradition and culture, but when it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa.

Timing

From an astronomical view, the equinoxes and solstices would be the middle of the respective seasons, but sometimes astronomical summer is defined as starting at the solstice, the time of maximal insolation. A variable seasonal lag means that the meteorological center of the season, which is based on average temperature patterns, occurs several weeks after the time of maximal insolation. According to meteorologists, summer extends for the whole months of June, July, and August in the northern hemisphere and the whole months of December, January, and February in the southern hemisphere. Under meteorological definitions, all seasons are arbitrarily set to start at the beginning of a calendar month and end at the end of a month. This meteorological definition of summer also aligns with the commonly viewed notion of summer as the season with the longest (and warmest) days of the year, in which daylight predominates. The meteorological reckoning of seasons is used in Austria, Denmark, the former Soviet Union and Japan. It is also used by many in the United Kingdom. In Ireland, the summer months according to the national meteorological service, Met Éireann, are June, July and August. However, according to the Irish Calendar, summer begins on 1 May and ends on 1 August. School textbooks in Ireland follow the cultural norm of summer commencing on 1 May rather than the meteorological definition of 1 June.