BEACONS OF ANCESTORSHIP

"Beacons of Ancestorship" is the 6th full-length studio album by American experimental rock act Tortoise. The album was released through Thrill Jockey in June 2009. The material on the album is a return to familiar instrumental experimental rock territory after a short excursion into vocal rock territory on "The Brave and the Bold" (2006) where Tortoise collaborated with Will Oldham (under this Bonnie 'Prince' Billy monicker).

Tortoise continue to play with and twist the rules of rock music by adding electronic and semi-jazzy elements to their music. The post-rock tag that the band have had around their necks since the beginning doesn´t really apply anymore. The 11 tracks on "Beacons of Ancestorship" are high quality compositions. The musicianship is also on a high level and overall this is a good quality release. I´m having a bit of trouble explaining how the music sounds though so the term experimental rock will apply for now. If the drumming had been more jazzy some of the songs could have been mistaken for jazz/rock. A song like "Prepare Your Coffin" is a good example of that (I hear a Santana vibe in that song). "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In" and "Charteroak Foundation" which bookend the album are some of the highlights of the album. The noisy "Yinxianghechengqi" is also worth a mention.

Every new release by Tortoise has always progressed their sound and broken new ground and "Beacons of Ancestorship" is no exception. I enjoy how creative they are and while not all songs on the album equally appeal to me they are undeniably quality material and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is well deserved.

Seventh full length Tortoise album, one of the Post Rock founders and pioneers, one that's able to get away from the ultra-formulaic skewings the movement has gotten itself into with those '00's clones that gives all of these clichés, which are unfortunately rightly flogged to death. Still lead by McEntire, the quintet has managed to renew themselves with every album or EP since the early-90's, even if the "progression" was uneven (but who cares anyway, right?), although they've even ventured into vocal music, a great departure from their usually totally instrumental music, which Ancestorship returns to. Some might think that Post Rock doesn't apply to Tortoise anymore, and indeed when comparing to the usual later clichés, they might have half a point; but in the overall picture, Tortoise remains Post Rock in the early 90's aesthetics.

Some tracks are nearly Krautrock-y in the electronic sense (ala Kraftwerk or Cluster), but also sometimes nearing techno music (like Coffin, Gigantes, seven Diamonds or De Chelly), but it's only half the album, and not the good one. But the opening High Class track might sound like a Nektar or soft Hawkwind , and some more sound almost classic prog-era stuff, such as Northern Something, Yingxiansumthin' and Monument (between Eloy and Yes, if you'll forget the modern drumming), while there's even an ethnic feel (the Moroccan beats of Penumbra and the bluesy Minors), but it's rather discreet.

Often reminiscent of their It's All Around You album, while Beacons Of Ancestorship might be a worthy Tortoise album (and a solid improvement on their previous album), I'm not sure it's worth for the proghead to actually invest into this album, but I'd say that it will come down to his own tolerance of Techno music.

This is the follow up to The Brave And The Bold, a 2006 covers album with Will Oldham on vocals. I don't consider that album a 'Tortoise' album as much as it is an album featuring the members of Tortoise, if that makes any sense. So when I compare this release with the previous two, I'm talking about Standards(2001) and It's All Around You(2004). To some extent every every album has been a progression from the last. But here they seem to not be doing anything very new, instead trying to focus on the strengths of the previous two albums. The line-up hasn't changed which might have something to do with it.

One thing that has changed is the instrumentation. The trademark vibes are almost nowhere to be found. Rarely is there more than one bass playing at a time, while the guitar seems more important than before. Here most of the songs are drums / bass / guitar / keyboards, while on earlier albums your average song was more bass / drums / bass / vibraphone / keyboards / xylophone. As usual the sound and production is top notch and the playing great. Some of the songs here are a little too short and almost come off as filler.

"High Class Slim Came Floatin' In" opens the album with a cool synth riff. Then it goes into symphonic electronic dub territory. Some ambient funk for awhile. Before 5 minutes gets fuzzy and distorted while the tempo increases slightly. Some hypnotic sequencers to end it. "Prepare Your Coffin" is more rockin' with steady drumming. Nice electric harpsichord. Good mix of synths and guitar. Cool but short guitar solo later on. Some synthetic handclaps. "Northern Something" has an awesome synth riff. This is techno you want to headbang to. Such a great sound but the song is way, way too short.

"Gigantes" has compressed drums going back and forth with some exotic string instruments. Sounds like some Spanish style guitar playing here as well. In the middle is a synth-sounding guitar solo with a cool vibrato effect and great percussion. Synth bass comes in and the song gets more melodic with other synths joining. Some more synthetic handclap sounds here. Some kind of imitated bird sounds at the end.

"Yinxianghechengqi" is the most talked about song on the album. Sort of like grunge meets industrial. A very hard-edged and rockin' song. I don't think it's as shocking as some think; they have lots of harder rocking moments on some of their songs, but this is the first time they concentrated it all into one song. Nonetheless, Tortoise don't usually rock this hard. Gets more spacey and electronic near the end. "The Fall Of Seven Diamonds Plus One" is loungy jazz that sounds like the music to a 1960s spy movie. The drum machine used here sounds like the Roland that Collins/Genesis was using in the early 1980s.

"De Chelly" is an ambient piece with great use of analog synths. The last song "Charteroak Foundation" is one of the best here. Nice arpeggioed guitar and symphonic synths in this song. Great steady drumbeat. Love the melodic synth that comes in around the 2 minute mark. Guitar harmonics in the middle with weird effects.

This would actually make a good introduction to this group, (seemingly) being the most "rock" oriented of their albums. Although I like this album a lot, I feel it's a step down from the previous two. Still, for 2009, experimental instrumental rock hardly got better. If you like their earlier albums, you will most likely enjoy this as well. If this is your first Tortoise album, then you may or may not like anything they did before this. I'll give Beacons Of Ancestorship a 3.5, but I'll bump it up to 4 stars.

After a pair of albums laminated in glossy digital polish the Post Rockers of Tortoise returned to grittier territory in 2009, back-dating their sound with dirty analog synthesizers and unprocessed acoustic drums. The melodic lines are sometimes harsh, and the instrumental textures often abrasive; even the occasional electronic percussion (in "Penumbra", and elsewhere) has an appealing retro New Wave feel, recalling Daniel Miller in his "Warm Leatherette" days.

And yet this is still a highly refined act, whether flirting with groovy industrial techno (in "Monument Six One Thousand") or performing with Punk-like intensity (and here I'll simply direct your attention to track six, instead of trying to type out the full unpronounceable title). As you might have noticed, the band's affection for descriptive non-sequiturs remains intact, but with no lyrics or other context clues it's hard to imagine what sort of cognitive mambo led them to identify the album's opening electro-grunge stomp as "High Class Slim Came Floatin' In".

The music itself is typically oblique, and no easier to describe on the band's sixth album than on their previous five. Just about everyone in the quintet plays bass guitar or percussion (or both), making it one of the more purely rhythmic groups ever assembled, and playful too. Note the guitar throughout the album closer "Charteroak Foundation", played in 3/4 time over drumming in 4/4. None of the music is really developed: the end of any selection is never too far removed from its start, in total resembling a collection of energetic doodles.

Tortoise doesn't really fit inside the Post Rock pigeonhole, sharing none of that movement's usual stylistic conventions: long, loud epiphanies, jangling twin guitars, and so forth. Most of the album's eleven tracks time out at a modest three- to five-minutes, and a few of those ("Northern Something"; "Gigantes") are cut even closer to the bone. Maybe the label stuck because of their obstinate pursuit of an uncommon muse, with no concessions to popular taste or passing trends. The band continues to exist within its own self-contained exoskeletal shell, reason enough to celebrate their return after five years away from the recording studio.

Tortoise is one of the bands accredited to the rise in post rock music by being on of the genre's earliest innovators. Since that time they have expanded way beyond the bar they set, but since they are experimenters on and beyond the rock genre, they are progressive more than they are post rock. They have taken many current trends and turned them on their ear, for example, they have delved into hip hop, jazz, minimalism, drone and just about any other style, and have moved those genres way beyond their established borders. So, it's tough to pin them down to any particular genre anymore. They have even experimented with indie-folk with their previous album 'The Brave and the Bold' where they partnered with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy to release an album of completely reimagined covers, and they even messed up new age music by helping Beck dismantle Yanni's 'Live at the Acropolis'.

So after 5 years of doing little projects here and there, they finally released this album 'Beacons of Ancestorship', and, as usual, fans were wondering where they were going to go this time. It seems the band was out to re-establish their position as innovators and inventors in the music world. Once again, they work to stretch the boundaries of whatever is current, almost seemingly in order to create a new genre out of existing genres.

We start off with the 8 minute track 'High Class Slim Came Floatin' In'. Taking a mid tempo dance rhythm, they produce synth heavy and catchy melodies to pull you directly into their music. The rhythm is steady, but not necessarily standard with some tricky back beats. A sudden stop/start rhythm and melody suddenly comes out of nowhere, just as you thought you might get up and move around. Even with Tortoise, this catches you off guard. At 4 minutes, they then turn to a minimalistic approach, but a sudden quick build brings you away from that to a heavy beat and sound while arpeggios swirl around making for a repetitive section where dynamics and processed sounds are used on separate layers, creating a cool atmosphere.

Two shorter tracks follow this. 'Prepare Your Coffin' uses a nice guitar/synth combo to create a nice accessible rock tune against a fast beat. 'Northern Something' is driven by an almost tropical rhythm that is suddenly overshadowed by a dark, yet funky synth. The sound is anything but standard in the unique growly melody against the percussion that has somehow turned from tropical to a march.

'Gigantes' is over 6 minutes and starts with a middle Eastern rhythm and sound. The rhythm continues while the instruments go every which way making unique sounds and melodies. Of course, as can be expected from this inventive band, things change slowly and before you know it, the sound of the track changes to something completely different. The rhythm has evolved into something else completely and so has the melody. Tricky rhythmic passages keep this one interesting throughout.

'Penumbra' is a very short track, which seems like it is trying to catch a rhythm or groove, but doesn't quite make it. After a minute, it gives up and quits. At this point, the entire album shifts it's focus from techno inspired songs to experimental songs. 'Yinxianghechengqi' goes into a completely different direction. It is a loud punkish-sounding track, more chaotic and heavy than anything previous to this. At the 2:30 mark, it suddenly turns dark and experimental as different tones, textures and sounds try and fail to take over, then it fades. 'The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One' has a nice European vibe with a thudding beat over an almost Spanish sounding rhythm and guitar. Tortoise is only borrowing this for the background of something a little more complex than this, almost turning it into a lounge jazz style spaghetti western track.

'Minors' continues with that Euro-jazz feel that follows a melodic style more than the previous. The unexpected part is the electric guitar staying in the lower register making everything seem a little unsettling. 'Monument Six One Thousand' turns to a mid tempo funk with a guitar following a completely different meter. It all does come together somehow by the end of the track. It's kind of cool the way the funky bass line ties everything together. 'De Chelly' is another very short track which is simply a synth/organ playing chords, almost feels like church.

Finally, this album is all wrapped up with 'Charteroak Foundation' which takes the last track and expands upon it. A quick beat starts up over the top of a guitar playing an arpeggiated pattern. Synths start up tying the two strange meters together. Strangely enough, it all works. After the albums dive into darker tones in the middle, this is the track that takes us out of that darkness. It ties the light and dark feelings prevelant in both halves of the album together.

This is the Tortoise style that I like best with a lot of variety in the sound, stretching both the accessible and the dark into new areas. There is plenty here to keep the progressive minded interested especially when it comes to being progressive and relevant at the same time. A very good album, it keeps things interesting, and it even retains it's strange sense of playfulness and humor, even in the darker passages. This is an excellent instrumental album, that doesn't have to rely on one style, and isn't afraid to go off in odd tangents. I also love the sly way Tortoise can shift a track from one style to another in such a sneaky way, that if you aren't listening close, you may not even notice. This is intellectual progressive rock of the best kind, but you do have to be listening close or you will miss what makes it so humorous and intellectual.