Tortoise - It's all around you

And the album? :D

(oh i kill me.)

Rock died?
Bring on the offensive tedium!

And that there's an incentive to hear the new Stereolab if ever there was one...

I can't tell how I feel about this album.

Well, come to think of it, it is, of course, but the album is quite a disappointment compared to Standards' rockish edge and brilliance. It's more like 'Millions' or 'TNT', but without the brilliant standout tracks. Texture-wise, it's still astonishing, but McEntire & co. sometimes give in to jazzy-snazzy-cosiness and spoundtrack pathos here, and that does not really suit them.

Worth a listen. But keep that 'Standards' cd within reach.

I was secretly hoping for a return to TNT prettiness.

I always forget about that first album.

what are their mysterious influences, do you mean like krautrock and dub and post punk?

that was kind of how i felt about "djed" at first, just like, "ok, don't really need a more muzaky neu"

Yes - but for me as an 18-year-old from a smallish town, those were mysterious. And I think it's fair that there are a ton of kids out there who love punk or indie who have not spent any time with krautrock or dub or Steve Reich.

Fair *to say*

I was one of those kids at one point.

ok i think i get it now. The first album sounds weird and unique to me because it's punk guys playing with elements of jazz, 'avant garde'.. and it really just sounds wrong and kind of wack sometimes on the first album like it was just not translating correctly. But it was great fun and had cool atmosheres. When they got "good" and started to polish up their style it became a "thing" and lacked the "anything goes"-ish spontaneity.. Everything later on sounding more measured. I think with Tortoise, it is a lol punk thing because it's really about how inspiring their approach was on those early records, not the sound. I mean, no one really thought that fake reich xylephones and melodica solos was the future of music, it was just the freshness of a band mixing ideas together, even if they didn't come out right all the time.
Ugh that all sounds horrible and could be written about literally every band ever but i wrote it so there you go.

I can easily pinpoint Millions as my gateway album. I bought Tago Mago and Music for 18 Musicians within a year of hearing that record.

It's not crazy that those dudes did this band, but it is kind of wild that it got as popular as it did. I tend to doubt that any of those guys thought when they were making those first Tortoise 7"s that they would end up catching on and playing that widely and for that long. It was just something to do. Call it middlebrow whatever, this went way further than any of their other acts that were tied to those guys. Those guys hit the indie rock craps table at the right time with a hot hand.

Dominique p much gets it wrt what I meant by middlebrow. Because coming at them as a jazz guy who had already started to dabble in out jazz and who also listened to classical and a bit of prog, my initial reaction was kind of "where's the beef"? Becusr they didn't se all that challenging or avant to me at the time. But then I just came to appreciate them as a band that makes great sounds.

Part of the appeal with the first few records was the combination of

a] the hints that they could, should they choose to do so, engage with more standard rock protocol (or "rock out" - eg "Ry Cooder", "Glass Museum") and

b] the fact that they do not choose to do so

As with "Nosferatu Man" on "Spiderland" - hey, we could do this all the time, if we wanted to, but that's not what we're ultimately about.

"Punk": I did think there was this strange straightedge aspect to post-rock, ie. pointedly refusing to indulge in more standard or familiar kinds of musical rhetoric or code, but that refusal itself gets codified, sharpish.

thanks pgwp, found it last night. i used to think that was the original version.

The 33 1/3 on Millions should be given to pgwp ASAP.

Haha, thanks.

I think it's very true that they sort of lost what they originally had when they began to sound like themselves. That is obviously a major problem with a lot of experimental bands. However, listening to the new stuff from War on Drugs and Real Estate, it makes me re-realize how unfair that really is. Today, if bands just make sure that they never ever ever sound fresh or different at all, then they can get away with never going anywhere. As soon as you choose to do something new, then you have to keep on sounding new, or people will be dissapointed and lose interest.

For the record, Bitney was also an ex-punk. He was in Madison, WI hardcore band Mecht Mensch, who appeared on a comp with Hüsker Dü and The Replacements.

Actually a lot of what I remember originally being excited about with them (and various related Chicago projects) is that they were dilettantish and made a sound out of it. Like suddenly it seemed possible for a sort-of jazz guy and a sort-of punk guy to get together and play bad imitations of dub reggae and Steve Reich and IDM and Ennio Morricone and swirl it all together til it made a sound, and it was OK that they were just mixing a bunch of influences they hadn't really mastered and they did it successfully. And it was ok for Isotope 217 to sometimes sound like an off approximation of 70s Miles Davis, in fact that was part of its charm. I found Chicago stuff very freeing because there was no sense of "you must have this much chops to ride" that I was used to from jazz, or "you must have this much compositional background to do instrumental pieces" or whatever.

I came to them through IDM IIRC, at the time having heard next-to-no jazz, Kraut, dub etc and they formed my initial understanding of post-rock before that term became a by-line for 'stuff that sounds like Mogwai or GYBE!'.

Today if someone were to say there was a band who mixed of Miles Davis, post-punk, Morricone and IDM I'd be all over it.

Right exactly, I originally thought of post-rock as a concept more than a style, and it was kind of a bummer when it just became a term for this one style of meandery instrumental rock. I think Dirty Projectors are actually a good example of a band that carries on the *spirit* of post-rock.

Cyborg Post Rock, etc. Sick Mouthy wrote a great list on this topic.

So... Are they releasing anything new yet? This thread's been revived a good few days now...

Miles Davis, post-punk, Morricone and IDM I'd be all over it.

Admittedly, I burnt out on Tortoise because for a while they were playing fucking everywhere, but the issue I have always had with the group is that the compositional totally supercedes the improvisational, yet the compositional element - the Morricone, the Reich-rips - always felt like fussy imitation rather than anything particularly inspired. I really wish the band found a way to loosen up a bit. The closest they ever came was by wearing matching jumpsuits. Or, you know, on "Standards," maybe, or the early singles.

Standards strikes me as their best and most original I reckon, but also it's the first I ever heard. Don't hear as many obvious ripoffs in there.

Of all the criticisms that could be levelled at Tortoise, being insufficiently loose is not one of them. Every time I've seen them play it's always struck me how relaxed and gently loping they sound.

Sure, and they do the exact same thing the exact same way the next time. But I don't think the tunes (as such) are strong enough to merit such fealty to the studio version.

in contrast, my girlfriend doesn't like tortoise because they sound 'jammy' or 'noodly', even though there's basically no improvising or soloing going on. :) except maybe in the drums, which is big part of the appeal for me.

my problem, if there is one, is that they're boring. I like them, but they are a bit boring.

Yeah, being boring does that help.

Does not help.

Reckon if there was a band just like Tortoise on Standards but less boring they'd be my favourite band. Think I will start this band.

my friends started that band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB6QbOkntCo

Battles?

Battles is a good one, but they're kind of annoying. I will check out Cougar. Really I guess it's the idea you can mix IASW, dub, post-punk and IDM together into a cogent cool sound that isn't dorky or dull or overly fussy. Maybe that's where a lot of these kinds of bands fail - it's too studied or something? IASW works because it's got a looseness, it feels effortless; same with the best dub and even IDM, back when Aphex was at his prime, had a roughness and a funkiness that eventually got all zipped up once it had turned into an actual 'style'.

I feel like a lot of people who hate Tortoise just don't like music without words.

Yeah, like Miles Davis and Morricone. Snoooze.

I remember a contemporary review of Standards that unfavorably compared parts of it to Mannheim Steamroller.

I kinda want to say the whole Anticon scene kind of parallels tortoise/90s chicago, in the sense that it was a bunch of folks mixing styles up in a scattershot semi-curatorial way, freakin with MPCs and stuff (instead of vibes and stuff) in a 'experimental' but accessible way. Most of that stuff is boring to me, though, like boring postrock with sorta fucked up beats.

Can we get some descriptions of post-rock other than "boring" on this thread. I get that it's a legitimate response, but it's so subjective that there's no real entry to further discussion. At least say what's boring about it! Lack of emotional intensity? Lack of spontaneity? Rhythms that don't hit hard enough? Lack of strong melodies? Repetition? Derivative? All of the above?

The Anticon connection is interesting, though, in that both were scenes that were critically acclaimed at the time, involved self-conscious "experimentation," and both seem to have ultimately fallen out of favor in critical opinion, for the most part.

Also both viewed as being "the next step," or existing outside of staid/stale traditions.

Yeah it's weird I can't really explain why Tortoise are boring. They just are. But then a lot of post rock is boring, even the best stuff tests my patience. I have to be ready to be bored to listen to it. I'm not even necessarily saying 'boring' is a bad thing either, sometimes music can be great but boring and Tortoise are one of those bands. They're just about inventive enough to be listenable and enjoyable but they don't really 'thrill' or throw curveballs at you. It's strange because an album like Standards is actually very varied but at their best they do a cool thing within a track and that's the cool thing but it never makes you go 'woah!'

I never liked Tortoise, or really any of thrill jockey's lineup but I'm not sure why. I was really into soul/funk and house music when TNT first came out and I tried to get into them, I even bought all of their side projects and back catalog, but I ended up selling it all soon after. It's not even that it was boring, I can't put my finger on why it never resonated with me, because I liked the idea of it all. I especially hated the Sea & Cake, but I do still have Sam Prekop's first solo record and I like playing it occasionally.

Tortoise were a non-boring live band up until about 1996, then they got really dull really quickly. Just lacking energy and spontaneity, I almost fell asleep the last time I bothered going to see them (in 1997).

Yeah, the early Tortoise gigs were pretty exciting, in an ad hoc sort of way. You never knew who was going to be playing what. I remember one Lounge Ax show where they had cobbled together some weird electronic drum set that looked like a bunch of pots and pans nestled in a pile of wires.

I saw them on the Beacons tour and it was very good but, yes, kind of predictable - you really do want these guys to embrace improvisation a little more. Or at least dare to reinterpret some of their songs for the live setting.

That said, "Djed" STILL killed, all these years later. It was by far the highlight.

Didn't really connect with this back in 2004, but I've played it a couple of times in the last three weeks since the thread revive, and it's a really good record. Strange how that happens.

I think that's the case with both this one and Beacons. They aren't albums that really blow you away immediately. They continue down the path started with Standards, so they don't feel very novel, but they are just absolutely solid and lack weak tracks.

always thought the first 4 tracks of this would have made an all-time great EP. the rest is nice but doesn't touch those.

Was this record proto-seapunk?

blast 'crest' at high volume while driving through a city at night and you feel like you're in some dystopian sci-fi movie or something

probably my favorite tortoise track, that one