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

TNT

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Tortoise TNT Thrill Jockey, 1998 RiYL: Steve Reich, Ennio Morricone, Miles Davis, Gastr Del Sol

Prior to the recording of 1998's TNT, Dave Pajo quit Tortoise to work on his Aerial M project full time and was replaced by guitarist Jeff Parker, a jazz musician already tested in the Tortoise spinoff outfit Isotope 217. The ensemble for the album thus became a sextet: John McEntire on percussion and keyboards, John Herndon on percussion and vibraphone, Dan Bitney on drums and keyboards, Doug McCombs on bass guitar, and Parker on guitar and vibraphone.

In total, there are three percussion players and four keyboard players (needless to say, it's nearly impossible to point out who's playing what). Tortoise are, simply put, a great rhythm section buried in an electronic music scene. Two factors bring it to life: Parker plays the guitar like a saxophone, and, for the first time, violins and horns are prominently fit into the arrangements.

For the first two tracks, the title cut and "Swing From The Gutters," it's hard not to think of the jazz rock of Miles Davis, the first being more concept oriented and the second a more bitting tune. But "Ten-Day Interval" gears decidedly towards a minimalistic direction, with the marimba played Steve Reich-style, and a piano melody in the background which is split up and slowed down along the lines of Brian Eno.

"I Set My Face To The Hillside" confounds things even more. After the Spanish-flavored guitar opening, a harmonica theme made for an epic western follows, and is bookened by a Japanese ballad led on the vibraphone. "The Suspension Bridge At Iguazu Falls" takes off from the jazzier progressive rock of Canterbury, but arrives at an exotic interlude with a guitar twang that would make Duane Eddy proud.

Soon after, the rhythm experiments follow. "Four-Day Interval" is a piece made of metronome-like scannings of the keyboard, while "Jetty" is a jumble of leaping beats and woodsy timbres. There are few catchier pieces left to keep the audience's attention other than the hybrid funk and dub of "The Equator" and the soft jazzy Caribbean feel of "In Sarah, Mencken. Christ, And Beethoven There Were Women And Men."

The sound leans on two composite processes, an overlay of sound elements in the studio and an uncommon synchronicity between the members of the group. The former is a deliciously technological fact, the latter a deliciously musical one. But Tortoise's true trademark is the transfixing tone that is used to execute each and every track.

The critics are right in accusing them of being too studied, but the music of Tortoise belongs more to the classical repertoire (or at least to jazz) than to the rock tradition anyway.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.