Surrender to the Night
Five years since their last album of new material, those slow-and-steady titans of mighty instrumentalism, Tortoise, have picked up right where they left off. As with 2004's It's All Around You, their latest LP, Beacons of Ancestorship, finds the quintet working with an increasingly electronic, decidedly dynamic palette.
Where they made their name with long, loping, ponderous compositions, Tortoise have grown tighter and more forceful with each passing record. Their three albums of this decade (beginning with 2001's Standards) have, in that way, seemed to move with the new millennial times: no time for compositional languor in the age of digital overload.
There are times where Beacons of Ancestorship sounds positively bristling. "Yinxianghechengqi" is built on a massive, guttural bass-line that's so distorted it clips down into a diffused fuzz; a kind of bruising, metal onslaught turned up to a speaker-shaking 11, as if Tortoise have just arrived at Trans Am's '97 party. "Prepare Your Coffin" unwinds a massive synth-riff, the closest Tortoise have come to fist-pumping. "Northern Something" builds a wall of ecstatic percussion, then smothers it in an intergalactic, rave-friendly keytone squelch; though at just 145 seconds long it feels more like a burst of hardcore than a sustained dancefloor workout.
Futuristic Meets Atavistic
But you can never pin the album down, simply, as Tortoise's 'upbeat' record. As is their way, there's always a dialogue between the many seemingly-divergent ideas their members bring to the communal mix. "Moment Six One Thousand" serves as an example unto itself: unspooling at a leisurely gate, but built around crunchy, distorted drum-breaks and punched out synth-bass, there's a strange tango between the electronic aggression and Jeff Parker's dangling guitar-lines.
It feels caught between ponderous post-rock patterning and the increasingly electronic, anthemic impetus that's this album's over-riding theme; there even a 'bridge,' if we can call it that, that sounds like it could've been lifted from TNT. It feels like the still-point of the LP; the moment that draws a line from the Tortoise of then to the Tortoise of now.
Sounding only like yourself whilst moving forward into new terrain: it's a musical, discographical trick that few turn well. Yet, on Beacons of Ancestorship, Tortoise have done just that. The album may often feel bristling, but it won't rub long-time fans the wrong way.
Record Label: Thrill Jockey
Release Date: 23 June 2009
