Albums by this artist

A Lazarus Taxon (2006)

It's All Around You (2004)

TNT (1998)

Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996)

Tortoise (1994)

Interviews

Setting New 'Standards'
February 25, 2001

Tortoise

Tortoise

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» JONATHAN COHEN | SENIOR EDITOR

Tortoise Tortoise Thrill Jockey, 1994 RiYL: Gastr Del Sol, Slint’s Spiderland, Eleventh Dream Day, Steve Reich

Tortoise set the proverbial indie-rock world on its ear with the release of its 1994 self-titled debut album for Chicago's Thrill Jockey label. Not since Slint's 1991 Spiderland album had rock been stripped so clean of all pretenses, and at a time when sloppy musicianship and lo-fi recording techniques were all the rage, Tortoise offered a true listening alternative.

Partially framed by elements of jazz and electronica, Tortoise is nevertheless a rock album, first and foremost. Eschewing vocals and guitars, the band is essentially a self-supporting rhythm section that includes two bassists and two drummers. Although Tortoise experiments with some trippy ambient noise effects, the greatest joys here are to be heard in the variety of tones exorcised from the drum set(s) and the lean grooves rattled off by bassists Doug McCombs and Bundy K. Brown.

Light bongos work in tandem with crisp cymbals on the futuristic "Spiderwebbed," while the taut drums on "Ry Cooder" catch fire about half-way through, introducing a funktastic groove tingling with vibes and hi-hat heroics.

It all reflects back to what seems to be the overarching idea here: less is definitely more. The individual parts are effective enough to do the job (even when a riff is repeated for the course of an entire song, as on the jazzed-out "Tin Cans & Twine"), but because songs move at such a restrained pace, the slightest new twist is completely rewarding.

Many have charged that music such as Tortoise's is cold or devoid of emotion. Quite the contrary. "Night Air" accents its deliberate groove with heavily reverbed mouth organ flourishes, slowing down even more for a beautiful, 4-chord breakdown. "On Noble" imagines a moonlit beach, slinking through the air while ocean surf fills the ears. "Cornpone Brunch" has an almost reggae feel, thanks to the vibes and the tropical groove of the melody - extra cred points for the sample of the electronic voice from The Who Sell Out. Each track has its own particular essence, opening up unlimited realms of interpretation and understanding.

The influence cast by this record cannot be understated. To say nothing for the proliferation of instrumental, rhythm-driven bands since '94, even simple exercises in fucked-up tone stretching like "His Second Story Island" have appeared down the line in the work of Oval, Analogue and Brown's later project Directions In Music. One definitely gets the feeling that Tortoise has arrived at something very groundbreaking.

JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"