― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Josh, Tuesday, 31 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Omar, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Damian, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― dave q, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Mark Morris, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
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. . .
― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Josh, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Discuss.
― sundar subramanian, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
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
― ambrose, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
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
― , Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tim, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Have you tried black-metal? It's a lot more amusing than Tortoise, and there's no blues at all!
― Kris, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sterling Clover, Thursday, 2 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Clarke B., Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
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.
― gygax!, Friday, 17 January 2003 19:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
Parker is a member of the AACM, you know.
gygax! whaddaya think of Pullman?
― hstencil, Friday, 17 January 2003 19:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
A nobly doomed effort.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 17 January 2003 19:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
*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?
― gygax!, Friday, 17 January 2003 20:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
everything afterwards, while still often enjoyable, just seems like smooth-jazz noodling in comparison.
― arjun (arjun), Friday, 17 January 2003 20:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
No, but Ken "Don't Call Me Bundy" Brown was.
― hstencil, Friday, 17 January 2003 20:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
and the audience wasn't much better. standing their stroking their chins and furrowing their brows. i was trying to fucking dance, dammit!
― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Friday, 17 January 2003 20:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
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
― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 17 January 2003 20:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 17 January 2003 21:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
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!).
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.
No disagreement here, bro-dy. Don't know why I own this.
― hstencil, Friday, 17 January 2003 21:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mosurock (mosurock), Saturday, 18 January 2003 00:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 18 January 2003 00:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― arch Ibog (arch Ibog), Saturday, 18 January 2003 03:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
Shan't.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 January 2003 04:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
Oh jeez ... what AECO tune did they butcher?
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Saturday, 18 January 2003 07:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
"Theme de Yo Yo", sans vocals, natch. It was ARGGGH-ifying.
― arch Ibog (arch Ibog), Saturday, 18 January 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
Natch.
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ian Johnson, Sunday, 19 January 2003 22:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 15:31 (twenty years ago) link
― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 16:15 (twenty years ago) link
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 16:42 (twenty years ago) link
― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 17 September 2003 21:36 (twenty years ago) link
anyone listened to this lately? i think it's aged much better than the tortoise stuff.
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 18 September 2003 06:30 (twenty years ago) link
the drone dissolving into the concrete then the emergence of the acoustic passages and finally the abstract jungle beats into reverse synth bleeding.
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 18 September 2003 06:38 (twenty years ago) link
― JasonD (JasonD), Thursday, 18 September 2003 06:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Damian (Damian), Thursday, 18 September 2003 11:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Thursday, 18 September 2003 17:42 (twenty years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 September 2003 18:06 (twenty years ago) link
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.
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 13 March 2018 20:06 (six years ago) link
Jordan otm. I can hum every tune on TNT and I haven't heard the damn thing in over a decade
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 20:13 (six years ago) link
miles davis is one of the greatest musicians of all time
tortoise made a few nice timely records
― j., Tuesday, 13 March 2018 20:54 (six years ago) link
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.
― eddhurt, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 20:57 (six years ago) link
superficial aspects of music like "hooks,"
Oh no you did not
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 13 March 2018 20:59 (six years ago) link
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
― brimstead, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:11 (six years ago) link
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.
― brimstead, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:13 (six years ago) link
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.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:25 (six years ago) link
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.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:28 (six years ago) link
You could probably slot him alongside peer and likeminded kook David Lindley.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:34 (six years ago) link
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.
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:34 (six years ago) link
I guess in a sense Tortoise at its best was truly a fusion band.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:37 (six years ago) link
Post-rock was just fusion all along.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:40 (six years ago) link
That I don't agree with. Unless you mean that all music is fusion, in which case, sure.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:48 (six years ago) link
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
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 13 March 2018 21:56 (six years ago) link
Ry Cooder is a bad-ass guitarist, and his later records, like Chavez Ravine, are great. Very humane efforts.
― eddhurt, Wednesday, 14 March 2018 00:38 (six years ago) link
this thread is a complete clusterchinstroke
― ziggy the ginhead (rushomancy), Wednesday, 14 March 2018 02:28 (six years ago) link
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.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, 14 March 2018 03:41 (six years ago) link
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
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 5 April 2018 22:33 (six years ago) link
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"
― brimstead, Thursday, 5 April 2018 22:43 (six years ago) link
"chung dynasty" i mean, god wtf brimstead
now you've got me thinking about stan freberg
― ziggy the ginhead (rushomancy), Friday, 6 April 2018 00:06 (six years ago) link
New Jeff Parker record is just insanely good, like nearly perfect.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, 29 March 2020 07:34 (four years ago) link
I guess I'm intrigued, because I've never really liked his playing. Which album is the new one?
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 29 March 2020 12:59 (four years ago) link
The New Breed, it's great
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 29 March 2020 13:22 (four years ago) link
Wait, that's not the new one, is it? Is it Suite for Max Brown?
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 29 March 2020 13:27 (four years ago) link
oops yeah brain fart that's the new one
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 29 March 2020 13:36 (four years ago) link
There's a new Chicago Underground Quartet album out too.
― fetter, Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:48 (four years ago) link
right on the new one is brain fart got it(sorry)
― brimstead, Monday, 30 March 2020 01:34 (four years ago) link
mini West Coast tour at the end of March
http://www.trts.com/
― StanM, Tuesday, 17 January 2023 16:30 (one year ago) link
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?
― brotherlovesdub, Tuesday, 17 January 2023 17:10 (one year ago) link
Whoa, calm down, it'll be okay.
fyi - you can also buy the reissue on bandcamp - https://tortoise.bandcamp.com/album/rhythms-resolutions-clusters
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 17:11 (one year ago) link
Seems like a totally fair comment to me tbqh. Bands should keep their websites up to date, especially when it concerns product.
― lord of the rongs (anagram), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 18:28 (one year ago) link
yeah, it's definitely annoying, but "run by idiots" seemed a little much.
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 18:35 (one year ago) link
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
― intheblanks, Tuesday, 17 January 2023 19:26 (one year ago) link
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
― | (Latham Green), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 19:47 (one year ago) link
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.)
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 20:24 (one year ago) link