Tortoise: Classic or Dud

Never understood Zeppelin, or the Stones, or anything with that up- front blues/rock feel. Well, I understand it now, and can enjoy it, but it's not a formative influence like it is with most people.

am i a dickhead

sam prekop, have my babies!

brokeback! i luv yr noodley bass nonsense.

er, and all the other ones.

anyway, thrill jockey do have the lonesome organist who is well good.

oh, im gonna fight my corner a bit re tortoise. many people here nad everywhere think they are very boring....well, many people here (maybe the same) luv missy elliott and her '....so addictive'. well i am listening to it now (1 pound from russia....) and i think THAT is pretty boring.

er i dont know what that proves, but im just a bit bored myself, of snide hipster posturing......i guess everyone likes having a common

Have you tried black-metal? It's a lot more amusing than Tortoise, and there's no blues at all!

tortoise albums = inconsistent;
tortoise singles = great (the duophonic "gamera", the first two singles, the tortoise vs. autechre remixes, the jim o'rourke remixes).

the japanese digest compendium that blends the original tracks with rhythm resolutions and clusters remixes is the high point for me, "djed" is incredibly dense in sound.

anything done with bundy k. brown i've found to enjoy.

TNT lost me (although the nobukazu takemura remix is incredible), haven't heard anything since. i think that jeff parker is a good guitarist in theory, but his stylistic methods (volume pedal and overt jazzisms) were off-putting and eventually turned me off to the band.

Parker is a member of the AACM, you know.

gygax! whaddaya think of Pullman?

A nobly doomed effort.

*raspberry*

you know, I never heard pullman but I really liked that Directions In Music thing with doug scharin. haha, wasn't chris brokaw also in that band? drums or guitar?

and Ned, why don't you go flounce off?

everything afterwards, while still often enjoyable, just seems like smooth-jazz noodling in comparison.

No, but Ken "Don't Call Me Bundy" Brown was.

and the audience wasn't much better. standing their stroking their chins and furrowing their brows. i was trying to fucking dance, dammit!

near the end of college, listening to lots of "college rock" (pavement et al.), i discovered tortoise, and it really blew the door open for discovering non-rock bands that are amazing and influential. while not necesarilly introducing me to lots of styles, they made me really interested in new territories -- dub, kraut rock, prog, electronic, minimalist composers like steve reich and terry riley, ennio morricone, glitch [through label mates oval], more out forms of jazz.

i think after a while the whole post rock scene became very same-y, especially from the second generation of post-rock bands, who's influences were tortoise, rather than all of the aforementioned styles tortoise borrowed from.

i once met the band, while they were Tom Ze's back up band, and they were complete assholes

and Standards was a big steaming pile of dog doo

I saw them at the NYC show, and it was no good either. I've seen them a bunch live, tho, and that was the first time they were truly sucky. And I've danced during those other shows, too (and unlike Out Hud, they did not command me to!).

i once met the band, while they were Tom Ze's back up band, and they were complete assholes

hehehehe, well I can see that. Was that when Ze played Park West? I was at that show. Anyway, McEntire's kinda shy, which makes him seem aloof (I don't think he played with Ze). Herndon is kinda bratty sometimes. But Doug, Bitney and Jeff are some of the nicest guys I've known, ever. ESP. Doug. That man is totally a saint. Unpretentious, down-to-earth, willing and able to chat about anything/everything in a really cool way. If most "hatas" got to meet Doug and just talk with him for five mintues, their icy hearts would melt. Or not. I say that tho 'cause a lot of the hating has little to do with the music, and much to do with a (mis)perception of their personalities.

and Standards was a big steaming pile of dog doo

No disagreement here, bro-dy. Don't know why I own this.

Shan't.

Oh jeez ... what AECO tune did they butcher?

"Theme de Yo Yo", sans vocals, natch. It was ARGGGH-ifying.

Natch.

anyone listened to this lately? i think it's aged much better than the tortoise stuff.

the drone dissolving into the concrete then the emergence of the acoustic passages and finally the abstract jungle beats into reverse synth bleeding.

Rockist: 'The Bar' is available on the three disc version of Perfect Lives, but it's a slightly different recording. That is an exceptional piece. He should get a whole thread, I'm an Ashley fanatic.

I didn't know the Ashley piece was based on someone else's poem.

and the only thing the tortoise piece has in common with the ashley piece is the namedrop. still no need to listen to tortoise.

But I bought some later Ashley that didn't hook me in, so I've kind of backed off from his work. (I can't think of the title right now, but it was a large-scale opera type thing.) Also, "The Bar" is really my favorite part of that Perfect Lives work.

I guess one of us should start an Ashley thread. You know more than I do, but if you start one some time, I'll chime in, maybe think of something new to say (maybe not).

didn't mean to be anti-Tortoise above, they certainly were better than many things in the 90's.

CHARMING

Bundy K. Brown's remix "Not Quite East of the Ryan" is a pretty good deep Tortoise cut to check out.

Y’all got me out here listening Beacons of Ancestorship for the first time in forever on my evening walk

At a TNT-era gig in Kalamazoo (or maybe it was Detroit), a person in the crowd kept yelling "Play all night!" Near the end of the set, between songs, John Herndon deadpanned "This next one is called 'All Night.'" No reaction from the crowd or the band, who just went into "The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls" or whatever.

ha, I saw Tortoise in Kalamazoo in 1998. I don't remember that bit, but I believe it.

Jeff Parker solo >>>

Enjoying this new album.

Still only 3 tracks from it available on Tidal. :(

The IA website says they are holding it until Nov 11 for streaming services. Would love to know if that works as a tactic.

Link: https://www.intlanthem.com/news/tortoise-announce-touch-new-album-out-october-24-bfxef-kktth

Yeah, that’s kinda standard practice for this label now, even on bandcamp the full album doesn’t usually stream for a few weeks after release. Which is fine, I just wish I had notice that the physical copy I preordered months ago would have shipped by now.

Did you buy from bandcamp? At least you get a download when you buy the LP or CD from there.

"Elka" is a highlight for me on first, somewhat distracted listen

I guess I'm one of the few fans who really liked The Catastrophist, and once again the stuff on here that I'm drawn to the most--again, just one listen in so far--is the stuff that sounds the least like attempts, unwitting or not, to recapture past Tortoise glories (and to be clear, I love past Tortoise glories)

Elka is fantastic

Portland folks: there's a listening party this Wednesday at Daydream (2615 SE Clinton). They already did another listening event at Mono Space, both of these (appropriately) playing it through fancy-ass sound systems.

I liked The Catastrophist too. Not necessarily my favorite of theirs, but I did like it. I've only heard one song from the new one - holding off until the whole thing is available to me.

Super bummed I missed their LA show at The Broad a week or so back...

in Tortoise sideproject news: a track off Pullman's new record showed up on Bandcamp and it's great:

https://pullman.bandcamp.com/track/weightless

Oh wow, there’s a band I haven’t thought about in roughly 25 years

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/11/10/obamacare-aca-premiums-rising-shutdown/
ACA health care premiums are rising. These 8 Americans showed us how much.

Tortoise member included in these 8 Americans

huh, i didn't know McCombs was married/partnered to (former Chicago Reader editor) Kiki Yablon

does an ilxor want two tickets to see them tonight at the bowery ballroom? spoiler: no jeff because he has a family emergency. I saw the show last night and it was good but not feeling inspired to do it again.

Finding the new one very addictive, surprisingly so. Had listened a fair bit in the run up to seeing them at the Barbican last weekend (matinee performance, v civilised and they were terrific I thought) and had assumed the second I walked out I'd be 'great, enjoyed that, that's my burst of Tortoise for another few years' but I keep putting it on.

A friend put "Promenade a Deux" on a compilation CD for me and it just caught me in the right way, the other evening. I had felt a bit "I'm not sure I need anymore Tortoise" but it sounded great.

Actually, the whole album sounded magnificent last night (as a soundtrack to drunk washing-up).

One always needs more Tortoise. Especially as their most recent album was ever so good.