Tortoise

Tortoise
Beacons of Ancestorship
(Thrill Jockey, 2009)

Tortoise, of all people, are worried about their age. The sarcastic album title about their elder statesmen status, the even more sarcastic title “Prepare Your Coffin”, and one song, “Minors”, is presumably about what they prize the most in this day—being one, appealing to one, anything to reverse time back away from those meddlesome coffins.

Maybe they felt they were prematurely mellowed out on It’s All Around You. Maybe they felt they were prematurely mellowed out for five records. Beacons, John McEntire and company’s sixth, is their loudest by a bit, even with the second half chilling out for a powder mostly. Beyond the boisterous Standards opener “Seneca” and its molten drumline, “fuzz” isn’t quite a word associated with Tortoise, but here, vibrating, queasy, hairy distortion infests every stroke until the last four songs. Burping Moog and ARPs in particular lead the proceedings—this is also the band’s most synth-heavy by far. Even the most traditionally them track, “Charteroak Foundation”, is crashed halfway through by a buzzing laser more reminiscent of Elvis Costello’s high Farfisa arrangements or Dr. Dre’s G-keyboard swizzle than anything this postmodern-fusion collective’s allowed on their pristine china collections they call records.

But more about those synths. Beacons of Ancestorship is comparable, somewhat quixotically, to the evolution of current Late Night with Jimmy Fallon house band the Roots, whose time as a hip-hop collective has grown progressively dirtier, sonically, from their early days as a jazz-band-with-MC. Their last album, Rising Down, was mostly a wrenchy synth affair, with violently burbling beats to match the political content of the lyrics. Tortoise, who do without lyrics, make a similar trajectory from their early days here; there is no vibraphone to be found, but plenty of tighter noises rather than big, spatial dioramas that they’re used to. In keeping with the theme of imagined youth, Beacons is a relatively short record. Who needs that old, grizzled attention span?

What do they do with this new arsenal? Well, they rock, four-four on the floor. Kinda. And mimic some sticky-smooth T-Pain R&B. Kinda. I don’t think I need to say that the hip-hop thing is also kinda. It’s always been so hard to wring sincerity out of these stolid instrumental fusionistas, but it was safe to say they were truly indulging a love of dub, krautrock, whichever—for years. Do they “love” the boiling-pot acid keyboards on “Northern Something”? Have they been listening to the Neptunes? Do they mean to really be Beacons of Ancestorship? Ancestors to what? Tortoise has had an identity crisis for years concerning their uncomfortable relationship with techno, and now that they’ve thrown garage blare into the mix (“Yinxianghechengqi”) and ’80s funk (“High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In”), do they really hope to resolve themselves? Tortoise isn’t a “fun” band; this isn’t a very “fun” album. It does reward minimal interest, on the dotty tango “Minors” and the pretty, layered “Charteroak”, and even “Prepare Your Coffin.” But why? Because a post-rock group rediscovered rock?

If anything, Beacons is more about the limits of music, which they believe is infinite, than age, which they don’t. But music is finite, too. Sure, put a cimbalom on the !!!-like “Gigantes.” Put fuzz on the bass. In real, tangible sculpting, you won’t end up with a sculpture if you don’t whittle the clay down to a shape. In music, the same holds true.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

Tags: Tortoise, Beacons of Ancestorship, Thrill Jockey