Tortoise: Classic or Dud

I enjoy DJed when I listeen to it, which is almost never. And the guitar refrain in "TNT" is excellent. But they've always struck me as pretty, well, I hate to say it, boring. Maybe I'm not listening closely enough.

There's an interesting piece on the Space Age Bachelor website about Tortoise. His idea is that the band is so bland fans of all kinds are able to read whatever they like into the music (i.e., the Slint fans hear Slint, d'n'b fans hear d'n'b, jazz fans hear jazz...all the while none of these things are done well & the synthesis isn't particularly interesting.) Seems pretty accurate to me. But as I say, maybe they'll click for me some day. It's not impossible.

xoxo

And I LOVE the marimba!! John McEntire one of all the all-time great percussionists.

And I suppose I'll be the first one here to come out massively in favor of "classic" status. I'm a bit surprised at the number of "dull" tags being put on them here -- I've always found them quite the opposite -- but I can't put my finger on what particular quality might be responsible for that split. I'm guessing it has something to do with context, and the "new direction" posited above: for those who'd spent the years preceding Tortoise's emergence following a largely rock-ish or pop-ish indie scene, I suppose the band was far more likely to seem energized and worth-every-second. If you'd spent the early nineties listening to old Cluster records, perhaps that effect would be diminished. But I'd offer, in their defense, that their lack of dullness has to do with the fact that unlike many of their antecedents, they were surprisingly not all about texture: their compositions have always struck me as far more sophisticated, melodic, and linear than many of the units one might argue they sound like. Which is to say: I think their "sound" is a red herring in terms of evaluating them, because the definable compositions beneath that "sound" would hold up equally well with a different presentation. I love bands like this, where what seems like a "sound" in the presentation sense turns out to be created more by the composition -- more by what they're playing -- than how they're playing or producing it.

As for classic status, this was cemented for me by Standards. I was somewhat afraid that they'd seem a little pale by that point, with the freshness of the scene long worn off -- but it still amazed me. I think they're one example of the genre that will continue to have relevance whatever the fate of the scene.

I've only heard Standards a couple times and found it dire. I will try again though eventually. The opening to the first track: awesome. The 'funk' - scary.

And yes I like Keith Jarrett.

I also think there's a performativity issue here: groups that sound like them are usually best listened to as non-performative creations, while they're best appreciated as a tightly-organized performative unit? Seeing them live changed my take on this slightly, and made me like them even more. . .

Discuss.

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?

I'm listening to michael hedges properly for the first time & I would like to formally curse ilx

Fahey is almost like a theoretical virtuoso. Ry Cooder is a real virtuoso, but not that interesting to me. The Brits like the Pentangle or Fairport folks, there's some virtuoso for you, on point *and* on theme.

But then, I always thought Jim O'Rourke a sham and fraud. So ...

what's a theoretical virtuoso? like... a composer?

Like, Fahey's big thing is often emulating the spirit of all these old blues guys. So it's less that he has to be a flashy player and more that he must capture that sort of primitive vibe. Like playing a character as much as playing the guitar.

ha yeah, he is much more interested in character/poses/drama/performance/irony etc. than his emulators, who are largely aiming at copying the scenery

thinking about it, i think pajo is a better guitarist than all the other guys we've mentioned

based on what? (I like Pajo)

I bit of what I reckonry, but with Cooder/Fahey it's like the difference between the picturesque and the sublime: the former is safe, soothing and maternal, the latter is Other, dangerous, disturbing. Both equally valid, like, but only one is truly imitable.

Fwiw, I think Tortoise are more the former.

And Jim O'Rourke is kind of fraud, I think (and wouldn't mind be called on it), but he's like David Byrne or someone, where they come so close to the line it actually ceases to matter.

Fwiw, I think Tortoise are more the former.

It's not like they named a song on their first album "Ry Cooder" or anything.

xxp all the others besides Fahey, obviously, I'm not being absurd. Pajo is quietly original and distinctive in his harmonies, tunings and phrasing, and his low-key greatness is attested by his facility for gorgeous elliptical melodies & counter melodies, and he occasionally gets to those moments of joyous heart-bursting immediacy that are worth more than Good Guitarists' whole careers

JOR is very mannered and arch and composerly and sort of hideously superficial but I like him anyway

JOR, man, that guy...no comment. I've now listened to TNT four or five times after basically not hearing it for over a decade. I think it only seems profound, it's wallpaper, but there are moments I adore. Miles, Jon Hassell, David Behrman, they cut them to shreds, though.

Serious question: would you know who Hassell and Behrman (and possibly even Miles) were if you had't heard Tortoise first? I ask because I will freely admit that a lot of this post rock stuff was a gateway for me to dub, fusion, and lots of other music that I listen obsessively to today. I'm sure I was aware of Miles Davis before Tortoise, and might have even heard Kind of Blue or something, but that feeling I got when I heard IASW for the first time and thought "ohhhhh...so this is where it all comes from" might not have ever happened if I didn't read in an Isotope 217 review that that Miles record was a major touchstone for all those Chicago guys

Ditto latest ILX punching bag Jim O'Rourke, without whom I wouldn't know Tony Conrad, Folke Rabe, Loren Connors, possibly Fahey, etc

While I would definitely rather listen to Jon Hassell or Miles than Tortoise or Gastr Del Sol (Behrman not so much), I think the idea that they "cut them to shreds" is maybe overstating it a bit

Tortoise has hooks, though. And beats. That's why it's much less wallpaper-y than what I've heard of Jon Hassell. And why it holds up better than an Isotope 217 or Chicago Underground Duo record. The idea of someone soloing over their music is, like, gross to me.

Jordan otm. I can hum every tune on TNT and I haven't heard the damn thing in over a decade

miles davis is one of the greatest musicians of all time

tortoise made a few nice timely records

Paul, I heard Hassell, Miles, Behrman, Morricone, Reich waaay before I heard Tortoise, whose music hasn't led me to one single thing. To me, Tortoise is an afterthought, sincere young fellows trying to make their nice little demi-fusion thing or whatever that is, and without the balls of the best fusion stuff, or jazz. I like TNT, and it does have some hooks for sure. I think it's a triumph of editing and trimming for sure. To my ears Jon Hassel's stuff is way richer, way less concerned with superficial aspects of music like "hooks," and just plain deeper--his Bluescreen stuff is as kinetic as the music he's imitating or lifting from, wheras Tortoise is...more pallid, suburban, kinda neurotic in a way. This is part of my whole disagreement with post rock--for sure I worked my way backwards from, say, Mahavishnu Ork to Duke Ellington, but at the same time I knew plenty about real jazz--Ellington, 'Trane, Parker, Armstrong, Earl Hines, Basie, Ornette--when I was sitting around grooving to Birds of Fire and whatever the fuck it was, King Crimson or some such thing. My generation, at least, knew about the stuff; and I think the post rockers were just too damned clean, too convinced they were onto something that transcended the dirty old world of jazz and rock. I can't take it very seriously, but as I say, TNT is a record I still quite enjoy, perhaps partly for nostalgic reasons.

superficial aspects of music like "hooks,"

Oh no you did not

Morricone bores me tbh. Tortoise's ersatz Morricone > Morricone. And it's still probably my least favorite part of Tortoise.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, March 12, 2018 5:25 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dude do you even know how many soundtracks Morricone has released? in different styles? it's not all speghetti western harmonicats

Ry Cooder is a guy I feel similarly meh about.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, March 12, 2018 5:16 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's something really conspiratorial about the omnipresence of ry cooder.. like what is the point of ry cooder records? who are they for? sorry, ry.

I assume much of this is generational (I was born in the mid-80s). Like Paul, I heard TNT and Millions Now Living Will Never Die before I started obsessively exploring Miles Davis' discography or delving into krautrock and the like. I was vaguely aware of their existence (mostly thanks to my dad, who occasionally listened to pre-Bitches Brew Miles and later Ash Ra Tempel when I was a kid), but they felt more alien to me than Tortoise, whose relative primness had a didactic quality (cue the thread about 'record collection rock' that was revived a month ago or so), which I suppose is precisely what irritates some of you. Anyway, I do feel like that cleanliness is part of the point. The muzakification is a strategy (doesn't matter whether it's conscious or not) meant to bring out the extent to which these once 'vital instances of spontaneously innovative genius' are now commodities, in line with all the rest, and emphasizing their status as a now-reproducible stock of gestures can actually be quite touching in its own right. I don't really listen to Tortoise anymore but I do think back on the aforementioned albums quite fondly.

I think it's key that Tortoise's prime coincided with the golden age of reissues and boxed sets. Everything from Krautrock to weird folk to out jazz suddenly became not just available but promoted by labels as Something You Need to Hear (often because said labels did not promote it the first time around).

xpost Well, I suppose in the '70s he was a bit of a "roots" curator - later, too, with the likes of V.M. Bhatt, Ali Farka Toure and Buena Vista, when his role was more explicitly to introduce people to stuff they hadn't heard. As a sideman, he's an ace, playing with Randy Newman, Beefheart, the Stones (he taught Keith about open G, iirc), and as a historian he's pretty cool, too. A cult figure, to be sure, but one of those "glue that holds things together" sorts. There are some great interviews where he goes into depth on, for example, Blind WIllie Johnson, Blind Blake, and Robert Johnson, who, per the importance curation, was barely compiled before the 1990 comp, iirc. Before everything from Harry Smith's comps to collections of random '78s started getting re-released, the stuff Cooder was drawing from was pretty underground and obscure, I want to say, outlets outside of hardcore blues/folk players and collector circles.

So yeah, I don't listen to him or want to, but he served/serves a role.

You could probably slot him alongside peer and likeminded kook David Lindley.

I heard all the jazz stuff before Tortoise (though not Can or Neu or anything like that). I first got into TNT through some jazz school friends who were (and are) amazing musicians and had already metabolized all the jazz history and chops they would need. So it was a cool perspective to see that as a starting point instead of an end goal, like, what are you going to do with all that? And TNT was a great example at the time.

I guess in a sense Tortoise at its best was truly a fusion band.

Post-rock was just fusion all along.

That I don't agree with. Unless you mean that all music is fusion, in which case, sure.

xp great post, pomenitul, and I think you are right in identifying the generational difference. I'm a little older than you, and sounds like I'm a little bit younger than eddhurt, but your experience mirrors mine. As I stated upthread, Tortoise was absolutely crucial to my checking out music that I might have otherwise taken years to find, and for that I am grateful. I also still think they're a great band, no qualifiers; I saw them three years ago on the Catastrophist tour and they were excellent

Ry Cooder is a bad-ass guitarist, and his later records, like Chavez Ravine, are great. Very humane efforts.

this thread is a complete clusterchinstroke

There is definitely a generational thing about Tortoise and the comment about reissues in the 90s is otm. Tortoise sounded alien and fascinating to me as a 19 yer old in 1995-96. They were transparent about their influences and that’s what led me to hearing Can, Reich, Morrisone,Lee Perry and electric Miles. Sure I might have heard all that in due course but Tortoise was my gateway and I’ve never held it against them.

I mentioned upthreas my thoughts about Jeff Parker joining the band midway through TNT. They became “less adventurous” but they also became less slavish to their influences. Standards is when they finally just started to sound like Tortoise.

If you told me this Joe Chambers track was a primary influence on TNT, I would not be at all surprised

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEWEC5lv_Co

i'll have to check that album out, i love New World from 1976. it even has semi-tortoise-y mallet percussion action on "chung king"

"chung dynasty" i mean, god wtf brimstead

now you've got me thinking about stan freberg

New Jeff Parker record is just insanely good, like nearly perfect.

I guess I'm intrigued, because I've never really liked his playing. Which album is the new one?

The New Breed, it's great

Wait, that's not the new one, is it? Is it Suite for Max Brown?

oops yeah brain fart that's the new one

There's a new Chicago Underground Quartet album out too.

right on the new one is brain fart got it

(sorry)

mini West Coast tour at the end of March

http://www.trts.com/

Link to buy new reissue is broken, link to their merch is broken. The 'marketing' behind this band is being run by idiots. Do they not want money for their merch and albums?

Whoa, calm down, it'll be okay.

fyi - you can also buy the reissue on bandcamp - https://tortoise.bandcamp.com/album/rhythms-resolutions-clusters

Seems like a totally fair comment to me tbqh. Bands should keep their websites up to date, especially when it concerns product.

yeah, it's definitely annoying, but "run by idiots" seemed a little much.

just wait until the better business bureau finds out about these broken links, they'll have a thing or two to say to these nincompoops

When I think of tortoise I can only think of how I have the vinyl of TNT and wonder if I can get money for it

They’re quietly gearing up to release new music, and this is part of that. (Tour and reissue, not links that briefly don’t work.)