TORTOISE

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 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.

I haven't heard much by Tortoise at this point in time, but what I have heard has really impressed me. Beacons of Ancestorship, their most recent album, is a highly diverse and interesting album that creates many textured atmospheres. coexisting with harsh guitars and synthesizers in a surprisingly pleasant mixture.

The first track, the 8-minute "High-Class Slim Came Floating In", is actually one of my least favorite tracks. It begins with a sort of irritating high-pitched drone, with the lead being played by a sort of choppy synthesizer part. The drumming on the track, however, is very effective. After a while it suddenly transitions into a heavy repeated pattern that almost sounds like a broken record. This gets monotonous very quickly, and finally a synth ostinato rises out of the repetition...veeeeery slowly. The whole thing feels kind of stretched and hardly develops, making the song a bit boring by the end, when the ostinato just jumbles into oblivion. The whole thing feels unfinished.

After that is "Prepare Your Coffin", which has some more frantic and excellent drumming--occasionally missing and then rescuing crucial beats, to give the whole thing an interesting off-kilter feel-- underneath layered ascending guitar and synth patterns. Yet another layer of complex chords underneath help fill out the sound. The guitar also gets an energetic but brief solo midway through.

After this, the short interlude, "Northern Something", starts out with a light variety of percussion, and then a wobbly synth theme enters, followed by heavier drumming. There isn't much to this track, but it's not very long, either, so that isn't a problem. It is effective as an interlude.

"Gigantes" has a similar layered, complex percussion part, but tops instead with some fascinatingly mathy, interweaving string instruments (which are difficult to identify) and a rather spare theme. But in the middle, this is suddenly replaced by a wailing electric guitar, and then a nice sequence of chord changes on bass and synth. Finally, the lead is replaced by mysterious breathy sounds and ringing synthesizers, playing a mysterious and beautifully atmospheric tune.

Another interlude follows, this one a weird piece of electronica called "Penumbra", containing a simple melody played on sampled-sounding synths with a shifting background. This one is very fun to listen to.

The next piece is a bit of a shocker--the harsh, noisy "Yinxianghechengqi", with a muddy, grumbling bass and synthesizer in the lead and furious drumming. Some times the whole thing is lost in a grinding storm, but one never competely loses track of the exciting melody (what there is of one).

The record calms down a bit after this with the sedate "The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One", with a slow, twangy guitar playing a minimal theme alongside similarly minimal percussion, including something sounding like a rattling chain. Again, the themes are very effective, and even though this piece is very slow, it still keeps up enough momentum to avoid collapsing.

"Minors" continues with sounds similar to "High-Class Slim", but playing a more cohesive and connected theme (one of the best on the disc), with interesting rhythmic shenanigans that the punchy drums effortlessly keep pace with. The synthesizers in this song also present more variety than the opener, producing a fuller background.

"Monument Six One Thousand" starts off with a bizarre, experimentally electronic beat pounding underneath meandering guitar, later accompanied by dissonant, repetitive chords.This is significantly weirder than anything else occurring on the album, but it still has a certain charm to it--the beat is interesting, and the guitar melodies are still pleasant in parts, even though they are also more dissonant.

The final "interlude" piece, "De Chelly", starts with a cool chord progression on a synthesizer and a brief melody on top of it. The entire thing is extremely spare, but that progression is amazing--it would be nice to see the band do more with it.

The album is lucky enough to close with its main highlight, "Charteroak Foundation"--the entire piece driven by another strange (but remarkably catchy) chord progression, this time arpeggiated on guitar, forming a 3/4 polyrhythm with the 4/4 drums (whose entrance is startling and impressive.) The piece starts out quiet with a simple theme and builds up to a sweeping set of variations on the undergirding arpeggios, becoming more angular until it suddenly drops back to the synthesizer that started the theme. It's a beautiful piece, and serves as a fitting capstone to the rest of the disc.

Tortoise's main success, well exemplified on this album, is combining bizarrely experimental studio trickery, electronica, and harmonic and rhythmic complexity with genuinely good melodies and nice atmosphere. Highlights include "Gigantes", "Yinxianghechengqi", "Minors", and definitely "Charteroak Foundation".

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.

The music is very diverse and is hard to describe acurately. Generally laid-back, but there are some energenic moments. Lots of electronics but not necessarily electronica. Tortoise were influenced by just about anything that wasn't punk or metal from the 1960s-90s. When this came out I had no internet access and had never heard of these guys anywhere. That was a time when I was convinced that all new music sucked. Thanks to the internet, I finally discovered this great unique group. I was convinced that if you wanted to hear good new music, you had to go looking for it yourself.

The album, which has a great title obviously, starts with the best 21 minutes in post- rock... "Djed". Of course, this epic sounds almost nothing like most post-rock. And it's all the better for it. It opens with electronics and basses. Later organ, then drums and bass play a very 'motorik' groove. After some jazzy electric piano joins in. Electric piano and drums change to a bass heavy dub vibe. One bass is still playing the 'motorik' line. After a bunch of synth sounds. Then electronic percussion sounds get slowed down. An organ comes in and plays melodic repeated figures. Some melodic bass and then xylophones. Before 14 minutes you hear a tape speed altering effect where the music gets paused and unpaused. Trippy when you hear it for the first time.

Electronic effects then dominate for awhile before the music becomes ambient techno. Synths making odd noises and then xylophones join in. The last two minutes or so is a slow hip-hop beat with some melodic bass playing. Great stuff! The rest of the album unfortunately does not live up to that standard. But they are great songs nonetheless. "Glass Museum" stays in a mid-tempo pace where guitar and drums mostly dominate for awhile. Then drums stop and an atmospheric section. Goes back to the mid- tempo part then all of a sudden changes to a more aggressive and rocking part played in 11/8. Good xylophone work and drumming here. Goes back to the mid-tempo section to end it.

"A Survey" is mostly two basses duelling with crickets chirping in the background. Almost reminds me of Primus. "The Taut And Tame" starts with electronic percussion type sounds. Then guitars, bass and xylophone join in. The music stops and then the band comes back playing around a guitar riff. The song changes again to a mellow jazz-rock vibe. Cool guitar sound during this part. Goes back to the beginning section. "Dear Grandma And Grandpa" is an IDM("Intelligent Dance Music") piece. You hear a woman whose voice is altered talking. All kinds of synth sounds and noises can be heard. Later you hear a man talking from a TV set or radio. That song then segues into... "Along The Banks Of Rovers" which sounds like music from a 1960s spy movie. A mellow light jazzy post-rock song. Nice synth which starts in the middle and continues till near the end.

This would be a good introduction to this group. The sound of Tortoise is hard to describe and no two albums sound alike. Millions... is a classic post-rock album although it sounds very little like most post-rock. Instrumental experimental rock music rarely got better than this in the 1990s. Almost a classic but not quite. 4 stars.

Opening on the rather standard post-rock scheme, generally more electric than electronic, but afterwards, the album soon veers weirder/crazier with the skidding out of control Gutters, where bursts of guitars and others clash with the generally quick (for post-rock) rhythm. The track almost reprises, but dies off quickly to allow an electronic keyboard arpeggio to lay out its web over charming vibraphone percussions, a Ten-Day Interval to Dream of a sequencer-like Tangerine, really. The following Equator seems directly taken from a mid-60's cheesy film soundtrack and is not my fave moment of the album, but it's also nothing really offensive to your eardrums. Simpler Way is again fast-paced and doesn't prepare for Iguazu Fall's, a slower beat-box-like paced track fading out in a low-spectrummed drone Another Four-Day Interval is needed before the rest of the album glides in the different moods already explored, even if the Almost Always track has a disturbing anti-dozing off alarm and the latter part of the album veers semi-techno music; which doesn't sit well with this reviewer, and most likely most progheads.

So their third album TNT is certainly not exploding your eardrums or blowing your mind away, but it's relatively pleasant passé-partout hip-crowd music if you skip that 10th track. The least we can say is that Tortoise doesn't stop advancing in the musical quest, despite having them make taste mistakes and publishing flawed music, but that comes with the experimentations and being at the tip of the avant-garde. Can't strike gold every time you dig in the ground.

Musically we're still quite far from talk talk's last few albums, the other Post-Rock cornerstone, opening on clumsy saturated guitar strums, Magnet intrigues the listener and has him perk his attention to a slowly evolving and crescendoing beat, where the intermittent killer bass lines add much drama. One of the album's highlight is the middle section of Cooder, where the vibes come in a charm your eardrums out of your skull, while the drums and bass are jolting out of your speakers?. Awesome stuff, still now, more than 15 years down the line. Some of the group's music can be strictly ambient and sinister as Onions shows with these feedbacks and basic drumbeats, a bit Krautrock-ey or Kosmische ala early TD or early Kluster. Tin Cans builds upon a nagging whistling noise, and turns out to be quite enjoyable. The general moods of the album range from quiet introspective to softly sombre to the Scandic-type melancholies with a tad of trip hop feel (or future trip hop, since this album precedes that movement) and to top it all of gentle techno music touches. The guitar often takes on a bluesy tone (ala Ry Cooder or Taj Mahal precisely, while the bass often strolls around the pace of the tracks. The closing Cornpone Brunch track returns with the vibes, but their delicate sounds get crushed by the grinding guitar parts.

Although many of today's Post-Rock top groups seem to be solely inspired on GYBE!'s sonic realm or Tarentel, it's quite clear that the Montrealers and Friscans owe almost everything to the Chicagoans of Tortoise, and that makes this band uniquely important and unfortunately often eclipsed by the uninventive Mogwai or EitS. Although I discovered Post- Rock's many charms through GYBE!'s debut album, it is nowadays certain that it was actually the beginning of the end in terms of groundbreaking as only Tortoise still innovates, almost two decade after being the instigator.