Tortoise

dubplatestyle

Well-known member
Tortoise! Why are they so hated? Is it just residual backlash from their critical apex circa late 98/early 99? Is it because they haven't released anything good since then? (<i>Standards</i> left no impression on me the few times I heard it, and I never bothered with the most recent one, even though a few people have suggested I do so.) Is it because they were "a bad idea"? I hear this a lot...that they represented something of the nadir of 90s pick'n'mix culture, that they had no aesthetic spine, that they killed post-rock as an idea and a reality, that they killed a bunch of other good bands (Stereolab, The Sea & Cake), that they were just lite jazz dressed up with mod 90s frills, that they stripped rock of everything that made it interesting (verse-chorus-verse, obvious hooks, the big beat).

Well, as for the first, surely that's Beck? Or the whole Grand Royal thing? Despite the lull and switchback nature of their genre hopping, Tortoise had a pretty definable sound, whether it was the marimba/vibraphone, the heavy-lidded bass (where most of the melodies came from), or the drumming, which was always consistently excellent. I'm not so sure post-rock was ever a good idea as everyone made it out to be. With a few exceptions (Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis), almost none of the bands were doing anything with <i>songs</i> or <i>riffs</i> (i.e. the rock part) and it very quickly dissolved post-Tortoise into the sorta nebulous "electronica" interzone where yr Morr/Carpark/Lali Puna/To Rococo Rots reside now. Which is what Tortoise always was - ambient music. Albiet a highly melodic, rhythmically nuanced ambient played by real live humans.

(I can't really argue that they killed Stereolab or the Sea & Cake, but surely that was a case of those artists taking on too much of the sound of their producers/members other bands when their real strengths lay elsewhere? Don't blame Tortoise for other peoples lack of self-confidence!)

I will always have time for Tortoise, whether it's hip or not. They were one of the best bands of the 90s for me. I'm still not much convinced by "Djed" (a little too showoffy cutesy-poo) but all three of their studio albums have much to recommend them and the Japanese-only remixes disc is out of this world. I'd probably rank T.N.T. the best, which is of course where people began deserting ship en masse, but it's a perfectly elegant album and good for late night listening or (bathos ahoy) chilling out in a "back to mine" sort of way.

What say you, Dissensus?
 

ambrose

Well-known member
i say:

i love TNT, i think its a pretty perfect album, and i dont find it overly clever or try-hard. i used to like seeing them live, and when i saw them on the standards tour in florence, it was great. standards is a far as will go with them though. the last time i saw them,. they had stopped doing anything that wasnt on the set of the last time i saw them .and they looked liek asses trying to provide backign for lee perry (?!)

but yeah, im sure they got a more shit flunug at them than they deserved. i gues they were unfortunate ni that they represented the apex of a something that at particular moment, everyone hated.

and johnny herndon was a fucking wicked drummer.
 
dubplatestyle said:
that they were just lite jazz dressed up with mod 90s frills,

i think this pretty much nails it...

the thing was that they had such a great debut that things could only go downhill. actually my attention completely wandered with that TNT record. what a terrible record! and whys that old bloke saying its got a great cover in the wire? its a shit cover.

i saw them backing tom ze and they were a pretty excellent backing band. scrub that, they were fantastic. maybe they should get some more backing band work. anyone any suggestions as to possible tortoise frontmen?

i suppose theyre the kind of band whose records will all be slavering over in twenty years time...
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
I too love TNT - it is sort of back to mine-ish, but there's a little too much else going on to really chill out to it. I really enjoy Standards too. After hearing TNT I chased up a whole load of Tortoise, but after Standards I just feel that I don't need any more. There was always something within Tortoise that leaned towards dodgy fusion jazz/prog, and they were really getting close to this on Standards - ensemble riffs in weird time signatures, that sort of thing. However, the opening of Standards - which is almost like Hendrix/Stars and Stripes - is really great. When the band goes into this sort of barely stitched together shambles, they're fantastic (in a different way see the first track on TNT). When they're playing really tight and clever clever grooves, they're a bit dull.

I also thought that Lee Perry gig was a bit of a wash out - the Steve Reich-inspired tracks off TNT were good (that sort of interlocking minimalism works best live), but the rest seemed a bit pointless; but then the RFH didn't really help as a venue...
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
I thought It's All Around you was 90% pretty damn good. Difficult to pinpoint why they're hated- they're actually quite funky (though admittedly not always funky enough), they're continuosly melodically interesting. La Jetee from TNT, what a tune that is. They're better than Fourtet, generally.

However Standards was awful. Too many intelligent musicians all trying to have an input > a nondescript mess.
 

Matos_W.K.

Active member
I actually do think Stereolab have been better outside of McEntire's auspices/thumb--I liked them best fore and aft. there's something very offputtingly dour about the Tortoise enterprise that I also generally disdain about broken beat and/or "nu-jazz" or whatever as well--they're like a white boho version of that headwrap and incense-laden Afrocentric-vibe-maaaan thing that tends to look down its snoot at fun-fun-fun. I seldom get much of a sense that Tortise were enjoying themselves, and have less of a sense that they're doing it because they have to. there's a real we-could-take-it-or-leave-it air about them that makes it difficult for me to want to grapple with--very collegiate, very middle class, very bloodless. it's the same thing that puts me off Pavement in theory if not fact; the latter generally make it up w/songs/tunes et al while Tortoise's textures largely don't stay with me very long (and I LOVE textures at least as much as tunes much of the time). I wish they were outright prettier, since that seems to be an/the effect they're going for, but they always seem to stop just short of it, afraid of giving too much of themselves away, fearful of letting go completely. there's something really reserved there that I can identify with in theory but generally leaves me cold.

I don't hate them or anything--just trying to get to the nut of Jess's question.
 

Matos_W.K.

Active member
it's also worth noting that Jess likes broken beat much more than I do, so our divergences here have some prior parallel, including the fact that I've grown to like some broken beat, and some Tortoise. I always liked TNT and stray things I've heard elsewhere--Andy K made a 2001 MP3 mix with a Standards track that I found nicely diverting in context. but I suspect such contexts are where Tortoise live, and that I'm not always hearing them there.
 

Matos_W.K.

Active member
also, I saw them backing Ze as well (I reviewed it for The Wire actually!) in Minneapolis and they were fantastic. the fact that they're smart people and really good musicians hampers them a bit, I tend to think--if there were some kind of wild-card element there (and I don't mean ProTools), someone who didn't know what they were doing and could set them off in another way by simple, accidental misdirection . . . . as it is, I can't help but sense that their collective smarts hamper them in a too-many-options/not-enough-limitations kind of way. I'd be really interested in seeing what they might do if they forced themselves to play one instrument each and record an entire album in two weeks. maybe it wouldn't be any good (and it's not like I had this idea before two minutes ago, when I began typing this, so it's not like I'm dying for it or anything), but it would be different, and maybe that's something they could use. though I doubt they're in for any wild or major experiments at this stage, a decade after they started.
 

hint

party record with a siren
Matos_W.K. said:
there's something very offputtingly dour about the Tortoise enterprise that I also generally disdain about broken beat and/or "nu-jazz" or whatever as well--they're like a white boho version of that headwrap and incense-laden Afrocentric-vibe-maaaan thing that tends to look down its snoot at fun-fun-fun.

hmmmm...

I think you're assuming things about the artists and their attitudes / intentions that simply aren't true. don't judge them on your experiences of (some of) their fans.

in the best output of tortoise, I hear the thrill of finding riffs. my favourite material by them is the stuff that sticks close to the "band in a room" kind of set-up... guitars snaking around each other, drums bubbling away underneath. sounds very uplifitng to me. dynamic.

in the best broken beat I hear something similar - people holed up in a studio, locking into a "groove" (terrible word that plays right into your hands, I know)... there's no real agenda, it's rhythm for the sake of rhythm. many of these tracks are thrown together much more quickly than people might think. if you don't think it's fun perhaps it's because you don't like dancing? ;) the people behind much of the best material are all about the fun of it - the simple joy of making music that makes people dance.
 

Matos_W.K.

Active member
hint said:
I think you're assuming things about the artists and their attitudes / intentions that simply aren't true. don't judge them on your experiences of (some of) their fans.

no, I'm talking specifically about the music here
 

mms

sometimes
tnt has some heartbreaking melodies on it, it sounds cakey and that is no reason to love it but i do,
it reminds me of times, that and plaid not for 3's are twins for me.

when i hear them playing i think of a gently lit, slightly cold room with plastered walls but no wall paper, slightly dodgy wiring, some men playing with their shadows projected on the wall, who cares who they are.
they were kinda bloodless, i can't associate them with jazz tho, jazz had more blood than them.
people probably hate them for this, nothing to grab on to, the antithessis of the celebrity rockers of nowdays, but that was the point i i think.

the term postrock seemed so much more liberating and exciting than the actual bands, is that music dead now?
i think once again like in the ninetees rock has returned to some age or another or perhaps all ages, there needs to be a challenger but it's got to be a bit more exciting than labrdford and mogwai or whatever.
are lightning bolt and black dice post rockers, or devenrah benhart and joanna newsom?
 
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Rambler

Awanturnik
mms said:
the term postrock seemed so much more liberating and exciting than the actual bands

True dat, even if Tortoise were at their best a band who managed to make something positive from an essentially negative definition.
 

ambrose

Well-known member
Matos_W.K. said:
broken beat and/or "nu-jazz" or whatever as well--they're like a white boho version of that headwrap and incense-laden Afrocentric-vibe-maaaan thing that tends to look down its snoot at fun-fun-fun


but the fun-fun-fun brigade also do their fair share of looking down their snoots at the dry intellectuals, right?

;)
 

Matos_W.K.

Active member
and actually, I do tend to find the f-f-f brigade tends not to do that--they want everyone to have a good time, including the dourpusses. that's why they're the f-f-f brigade to begin with. (I'm speaking very generally here, not really talking about Tortoise fans or nonfans or whatever.)
 

hint

party record with a siren
Matos_W.K. said:
and actually, I do tend to find the f-f-f brigade tends not to do that--they want everyone to have a good time, including the dourpusses. that's why they're the f-f-f brigade to begin with.

roll on the big beat revival, then? ;)
 

dubplatestyle

Well-known member
i think the people who look down their noses at the hipster intellectuals are actually former hipster intellectuals who've experienced a fun-fun-fun road to damascus moment. (and i should know, because i briefly was one.)
 

mms

sometimes
WOEBOT said:
this thread post-rocks

:)

i propose all that stuff like snow patrol, the zutons scissor sisters and razorlight etc gets a genre name
"casual rock" as in :
what kind of music do you like?
i am a casual rock fan.
 

Clubberlang

Well-known member
dubplatestyle said:
i think the people who look down their noses at the hipster intellectuals are actually former hipster intellectuals who've experienced a fun-fun-fun road to damascus moment. (and i should know, because i briefly was one.)

Haha believe me plenty of people of hate hipster intellectuals (or most intellectuals of any stripe) without actually having been them (or even around them.)
 
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