5.18.2009

Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship


The new Tortoise album - titled Beacons of Ancestorship - hits the streets on 23 June, 2009!

No longer the indie-rock hepster that I was in the 1990s, I still got to check out the new Tortoise release a few weeks early. And what a great album!

I began writing a real review, but quickly decided that I was being waaay too verbose. So, here are the notes I made while listening (in order, even, so you can follow along at home...):

some familiar ground... twisted synth/bass/drums... riff that teeters between groove + exploration... glitchy breakdown of sorts... incessant sequenced-sounding synth... crashes into silence... latin-flavored drum machinage... IDM... throbby synths... berimbau... highly syncopated Latinate rhythm... glitch-driven + trippy... strangely reminiscent of early ELP... wacky meter... heavily distorted bass... synth rumbles and glitch-noise... airy and slightly ominous... decidedly Morricone-flavored reverb-drenched guitar... light meandering... that level of experimentation expected from a TRTS record... very catchy... holy shit!... changing the entire vibe of the song like the devolutionary break in Djed... frazzled some synapses...

These are all great tracks, with Charteroak Foundation definitely being the one that warpt my mind the most. The 1st two songs are available as free MP3s (linkt below).

Track listing:

  1. high class slim came floatin' in (download from Stereogum)
  2. prepare your coffin (download from Pitchfork)
  3. northern something
  4. gigantes
  5. penumbra
  6. yinxianghechengqi
  7. the fall of seven diamonds plus one
  8. minors
  9. monument six one thousand
  10. de chelly
  11. charteroak foundation

No comments:

Post a Comment