Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship

There is still something of the shock of the new with Tortoise. For what is ostensibly a rock band ”“ albeit one that draws on a multitude of influences and techniques - they manage to avoid the neat narrative conventions of resolution and build and release, of deep affective response, of fitting into some solidified sense of a rock continuum. Instead they seem to stand outside the whole tattered mess of genre and use its tropes and forms in a manner of oblique comment. This is a band that implicitly understands the structure of the music it plunders and manipulates, yet sidesteps its muddled sense of its own history. They are genuinely unique.

And yet, here were are six studio albums in (plus a box set, a collaboration with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, remix records, guest appearances, and 12s too numerous to count) and Tortoise have made, by their own esoteric standards, their most straight ahead ‘rock’ record to date. Add to that the title, which appears to be an indirect nod to their position in a musical continuum that stretches back to the bright beacons of John Fahey, Can and Miles Davis to Stockhausen and beyond and you have a band that suddenly seems very comfortable in its own skin ”“ and aware of its vaulted position. Which might explain why the album sounds so ‘on’ and, despite the usual studio compositional techniques, so live.

Take ‘Yinxianghechengqi’(named after the first synthesiser manufactured in China) ”“a brute of a track - announced by a strangled yelp - based around a flabby, seam-splitting bass line and some almost-metal guitar runs. Before it melts into a strange Lynchian ambient passage, it could be a particularly rough demo from any garage band. It sounds as if it were recorded live. Except this being Tortoise, of course it wasn’t. It’s actually stitched together and is really an experiment ”“ the band mixing Schoenberg and The Seeds, the first 12-tone garage band. ‘Prepare Your Coffin’ is also played alarmingly straight, straight in the sense that it sounds like it could soundtrack a cop show beamed in from the 23rd century; and though I’m struggling to give some anchor points for the sound, it’s tempting to see Steely Dan in the track’s polished chrome surface.

Evidently, the band have gained a good deal from recent tours and you can feel the confidence surging through the tracks mentioned above. Yet it’s tracks like ‘Northern Something’ and ‘Gigantes’ where their genius shines through. These are studio compositions, experiments in sonic possibility, beat science melded with live instrumentation. ‘Northern Something’ mixes samba and dubstep, a fat squelching bass groove riding an intricate drum pattern ”“ it is something D/j Rupture might conjure up. ‘Gigantes’, a much longer track, continues this method of interlocking rhythms. Ostensibly in 4/4 the piece shifts on stuttering half beats provided by an elastic guitar line. As it progresses this elasticity is assumed by synths as the song reaches into space. It’s a fabuloulsly dense sound and as the ear picks through the accreted layers, the intricate web of competing and harmonious strands induces a kind of sonic vertigo.

I think it’s fair to say that the second half of the album isn’t as involving or as soncially adventurous; and for a band that's been away a good while that might seem a little like short change. ‘The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One’ is all Tortoise, a languid throbbing thing of southern noir. ‘Monument Six One Thousand’ has a similar noir-ish root, but has a strange clogged, claustrophobic atmosphere that resolves into ‘De Chelly’ a quietly beautiful passage played on what first could be a farfisa organ, then a severely modulated bass guitar. 'Charteroak Foundation', the closing track seems little more than an open ended idea that kind of fizzles out into nothing ”“ it's an interesting workout but doesn't match the rest of the album's urgency and quality.

Overall though, this is a great record ”“ a great driving rock record - from a great band who are still at the top of their game. Some had said that A Lazarus Taxon, the 4 disc box set that appeared in 2007, could be seen as the band’s headstone. Beacons Of Ancestorship is emphatic proof that that was a sorely premature declaration. Tortoise are as vital as ever. 81%

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