“The Fall of Seven Diamonds”

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Tortoise
Thrill Jockey
(2009)
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Tortoise’s entire creative output stretches across 20 years, and the Chicago-based post-rock band has dabbled flirtatiously with several creative possibilities for rock music, combining ’70s Krautrock, free-form jazz and electronica to express their own brand of experimental music. Beacons of Ancestorship is the group’s latest offering, and the band doesn’t show any signs of atrophy after two decades. Given contemporary developments and perversions that have stretched our conceptions of music, the songs in Tortoise’s latest record doesn’t sound as groundbreaking or surprising as they would’ve in the past. Many a post-rock band, seeking out the communities of Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and other major music cities, have emulated the punctilious grooves and rhythmic oddities of Tortoise. “Gigantes” sounds like a nascent combination of Battles and Thievery Corporation, with all their precise-sounding progressions and world-music appropriations. The heavy distortions and spaced-out guitars of “Yinxianghechengqi” take the strident harmonics of hardcore and punk and push them through what sounds like an ominous, post-industrial sound machine. “The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One” is a more cinematic, much more thematic take on the post-rock genre (imagine a sci-fi Spaghetti Western soundtracked by Ennio Morricone). Tortoise’s sixth record may no longer have the punch and novelty of their past works, but it still warrants consideration as a worthy experimentation in production and composition.

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http://www.trts.com/splash.html

http://www.myspace.com/tortoise

via Abe Ahn, 18 June 2009 3:13pm | |