There’s a certain kind of magic that Yo La Tengo achieve every year during their annual appearance on listener-supported New Jersey radio station WFMU where, in return for donations, they play covers from memory over the air. There’s also a certain kind of tedium that sometimes settles in, a tightrope between how much the band might remember, whether the song will veer into a goof, self-destruction or a genuinely gorgeous performance nearly worthy of the band’s cover oriented classic Fakebook. Like Stuff Like That There, their recent companion to Fakebook, their second collection of WFMU covers—Murder in the Second Degree, naturally—finds the band performing with an increasing depth, manifesting in an assured spontaneity (a segue from Traffic’s “Low Spark of the High-Heeled Boys” into Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul” and back), gorgeous instrumentals (one minute of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy”), outright beauty (the Georgia Hubley/ James McNew duet on the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody”) or casual confidence (Ira Kaplan knocking out a jangle-pop version of Mike Nesmith’s incredibly wordy “Different Drum”). Fully in the tradition of The Turtles’ Rhythm Butchers LPs or The Beach Boys’ Party, Yo La Tengo’s WFMU sets are a quietly important part of the veteran band’s work and art, outlining a skewed and still-developing canon of shared songs. Stretching from the Kinks (“King King”) to Bad Brains (“Pay to Cum”), from the Grateful Dead (“Bertha”) to The Ronettes (Hubley nailing “Be My Baby”), the idiosyncrasy of the performances imbues each with the power to resonate or infuriate. Laughing is OK, too, and so is singing along (and pledging to WFMU).