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The members of Yo La Tengo can wax eloquently on dozens of topics -- love, jazz, the therapeutic nature of Ping-Pong -- but their animated conversation hits a roadblock when they realize they don't know the latest catch-all term for electronic music. "I like to call it disco," says Ira Kaplan. "For a more archaic feel." "Funkabilly," suggests Georgia Hubley, and the band breaks down into convulsive giggles. The specter of an all-night jam between Bootsy Collins and Lee Rocker looms until James McNew rolls his eyes and declares, "That's so over." Perhaps it's fortunate that Yo La Tengo have never kept up with the pop scene's flavors of the month. Since 1986, when sweethearts Kaplan and Hubley released Ride the Tiger, they've just been playing the kind of songs that come naturally, drawing inspiration from well-worn record collections and the relaxed rhythms of domestic life in Hoboken, New Jersey. After McNew hopped aboard in 1991 and proved to be the group's long-missing puzzle piece, their music evolved into something even more accomplished and atmospheric; see 1993's hypnotic Painful and '97's variety pack I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One. Add live shows in which YLT segue from dreamy to blistering in about three seconds, and it's clear why they've become something of a national treasure in American indie rock. Yo La Tengo's new album is their quietest to date, no matter how you adjust your volume controls. And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out, due in late February, is strikingly meditative, flush with hushed vocals, spiderweb guitars, and multiple variations on YLT's pillowy pop drones. Listeners waiting for a Big Rock Moment will have to do with just one -- the rolling, fuzzed-out "Cherry Chapstick" -- but Nothing's overall vibe is far from static. To keep things fresh, on some songs the trio deviated from its standard lineup of Kaplan on guitar, Hubley on drums, and McNew on bass; they also called on a few guest players, including young jazz percussionist Susie Ibarra. And for good measure there's a disco cover: an easyflowing interpretation of George McRae's "You Can Have It All." The album's serenity calls increased attention to the lyrics, on which Hubley and Kaplan send each other mash notes and ruminate on their relationship. Kaplan's "The Crying Of Lot G," in particular, sweetly focuses on weathering rough spots: "You don't have to smile at me, you don't have to talk/All I ask is that you stop and remember it isn't always this way." However, the couple sidesteps the notion that Nothing is a theme album about their marriage. "I think the lyrics might be a little clearer this time, so maybe people are noticing that," Kaplan offers. After all, he points out, many earlier YLT songs also referenced the bliss and complexity of long-term love. "I'm right now in the process of going song-by-song down Painful, and practically every song there is on that topic as well." It's tempting to look at the situation that Hubley and Kaplan have carved for themselves -- living and working together, collaborating with their good friend McNew -- and draw parallels with Hubley's parents. John and Faith Hubley ran their own animation studio, creating fluid and whimsical pieces in association with friends like Quincy Jones. Like YLT, they drew inspiration from their personal lives; young Georgia and her sister Emily sometimes appeared in their parents' work. The adult Georgia recognizes the echoes in her current life, but she says she didn't deliberately choose the same path. "Not that I do what they do at all," she says, "but there was an element of surprise that I was falling into similar patterns." Kaplan laughs and jumps in: "I think they inspired me more than you." He contemplates the effect of watching other people blend their art and their personal relationships, citing the first time he saw brothers Hamish and David Kilgour play in the legendary New Zealand pop band the Clean. "I remember watching the interaction between the two brothers and finding it mesmerizing," he says. "They didn't seem to be looking at each other, and yet they seemed so in tune." The group later got to know David Kilgour, who -- along with Superchunk's Mac McCaughan -- will join YLT this spring for a tour of plush sit-down venues. The five will switch off instruments onstage, a prospect that intrigues the band. Notes Kaplan: "The three of us work together so much, to the exclusion of everyone else, that to bring in people and say, 'All right, get telepathic' is unusual." It's unusual, but it's not unprecedented. In recent years, Yo La Tengo have gradually let other musicians into their corner of the world; one past collaborator was the inimitable Jad Fair. In late 1999 YLT self-released the double 7-inch "Now 2000"/"Excaliber 2001," which featured their friend Sue Garner of Run On and three jazz musicians: trumpeter Roy Campbell Jr. and saxophonists Daniel Carter and Sabir Mateen. Kaplan says a great side effect of working with the jazz players "was getting past that feeling of 'They're too good for us,' which is a terrible feeling to have." That confidence carried over to the sessions for Nothing, in which Yo La Tengo brought in Ibarra and other guest players. Yet despite YLT's collaborations with jazz musicians, they say the direct influence of jazz on most of their music is still minimal. Kaplan says it's seeped through in other ways, though. "I think perhaps with this record," he says, "more than other ones, we've spent a lot of time dancing around these songs, finding the way they sort of sat right with us. And even though we're not informative of it in any way about it on the packaging, we've got different people playing different instruments. Which I think is not unrelated to our listening to jazz." The band admits, however, that the new album's relaxed vibe might actually have something to do with a more subtle force: Ping-Pong. For the Nothing sessions, they returned to the same Nashville studio where they recorded 1995's Electr-O-Pura. "They don't have a TV," says Kaplan, "but they've got a Ping-Pong table, which is really different. Where we did I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One, every time we weren't needed, we'd rush downstairs where the TV was; they were one of the first cable systems in the country to get TV Land. Now, we decided we preferred Ping-Pong to cable TV."