Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship
So Tortoise is coming out with a new album on 23 June. I have kind of mixed feelings about Tortoise ever since I saw them on their tour with Daniel Lanois - they opened and played as his band. It was almost as if Lanois had never heard Tortoise before, but they did a good audition, and it was politically feasible, so went with it; then, hearing them every night, he was forced to understand that their kind of music was very dry and cerebral, where his is emotional and immediate (live at least).
Almost as if. At any rate, watching him interact with them on stage reinforced the sense I had developed, watching them, that their music was about as meaningful to me as a pile of calculators programmed to beep the tune to “Secret Agent Man”. I loved It’s All Around You - at least I did one time on the road from Angel Fire to Taos, NM, when I determined it was my favorite instrumental album since Kind of Blue (!) - and TNT is a classic, so I was rather at sixes and sevens over the ordeal.
Perhaps they’re just best enjoyed in moments of solitary attention. I remember that the Tortoise crowd’s stance was of awkward, arms-folded, second order reverie, such as would be expected of people who have primarily experienced something alone and unhindered by drink.
This new Tortoise track strikes me as rather an attempt to claw towards immediacy, so we’ll see what comes of the new album.
6 months ago
