There's Two Sides to Every Story
Millions Now Living Will Never Die is an album in the old-fashioned sense of the word: there's a Side A and a Side B. Though released well into the compact-disc era, in 1996, the second record for Chicago instrumentalists Tortoise is a suite of songs perfectly divided in two. its opening stanza is a single, 21-minute monsterwork named "Djed" that reinvents itself several times over. Its second half contains four stand-alone 'snippets' of sound, that, whilst singular studies unto themselves, hang together perfectly. It amounts to an album-lover's album.
Which fits perfectly with who Tortoise were. Wildly unpopular when working on the LP, the Chicago quintet were a collection of friends playing together to push the parameters of sound. They all had other bands where they could play songs; here they were working outside the norm, building compositions from drums and basses and studio cut-ups, with nary a guitarist or singer —any traditionally 'melodic' instrument, really— to be seen.
Anyone who tuned into the results was, the band figured, sure to be fellow musicologists, happy to wade into the stylistic unknown. Except, upon its release, Millions Now Living Will Never Die became, strangely enough, wildly popular. Unintentionally capitalizing on the distorted-guitarist/sarcastic-lyrics fatigue left in the wake of Alternative Rock's juggernaut, their meandering, quizzical compositions found a legion of sympathetic listeners, and proved a catalyst for the budding post-rock sub-genre.
High Seas
Yet, removed from the milieu that birthed it and the historical context that crowns it as important, Millions Now Living Will Never Die is still a great, great record. A vast seascape painted in pointillist hand-percussion and tidal shifts of rhythmic groove, it's an album defined by its massive, opening gambit; but one that's never better than on "Glass Museum."
Summoning oceans of emotion without uttering a word, "Glass Museum" finds stirring guitar-parts played by Dave 'Papa M' Pajo dowsed in glittering, cascading patterns of vibraphone. Commencing with no introduction of any kind, the composition drops the listeners right into its main, repeated motif; drops them right into a deep mix of instruments thick and rich. After two minutes, the song stops; steps gingerly through virtual quiet, then re-starts; shifts to a double-time, storm-brewing feeling; then returns, triumphantly, to the original overture. It's modern composition colliding with rock'n'roll, coming out in some wondrous place where 'cinematic' seems like the only word that fits.
Record Label: Thrill Jockey
Release Date: 30 January 1996
