Tortoise Beacons of Ancestorship

Ten years ago I bought Come On Die Young, Mogwai’s underrated follow-up to Young Team. The album marked the start of a good two to three year fanaticism with all things “post-rock”, a term that had been coined to incorporate all kinds of mostly instrumental guitar-based music. If that sounds like a vague description, it was. Invented by a media too lazy and uninventive to think of anything better, it included such diverse acts as Godspeed You Black Emperor, Labradford, and Gastr del Sol and became the catch-all term for any music that both shirked the traditional indie song-writing template, while still gaining the fervour of indie rock fans. It was so inclusive as to be absolutely exclusive and has been, I would want to argue, the undoing of many of the acts the movement spawned. The major difficulty was how any band labelled “post-rock” could move forward without taking two steps backwards. If to be somehow beyond, or after, rock music was the defining feature of your band, how could you change your sound without reverting back to playing plain old rock? It now appears bands like Mogwai might be doomed to record the same album over and over for exactly this reason. 

Tortoise though, always seemed more than this.  For one thing, their records were never instantly accessible. Unlike other post-rock bands, the music didn’t necessarily thematically translate moods and tones from indie music. Where CODY incorporated a lot of the melodrama, sadness, and guitar sounds I was used to from listening to more conventionally structured songs, Tortoise’s self-titled debut sounded like it was a field recording taken on board an alien spaceship. To be blunt, I hated it, and it was only months after buying it, when I started to develop weird urges to listen again, that I realised how good it was. Here was an album of genre-hopping instrumental pop music recorded by a group of uber-talented (almost) jazz musicians from Chicago. The more I think about it, the more I realize how inadequate a label “post-rock” was (and still is) for this band, and how little resemblance there was (and still is) to the other bands they were lumped in with.

Now, six albums in, Tortoise have hit somewhat of an impasse. Their previous record, It’s All Around You, was released five years ago to a particularly lukewarm reception. In contrast, drummer John McEntire’s other project, The Sea and Cake, released one of their best albums last year; Car Alarm. Which brings me, finally, to Beacons of Ancestorship. In short, I was relieved to find that this record was a definite step up from its predecessor.

The game plan for this record, if Tortoise ever have a game plan, definitely appears to be to have made a tighter, leaner, meaner piece of music. One of the highlights, the somewhat ludicrously titled Prepare Your Coffin, pokes fun at just this idea by being based around a thick quasi-metal bass riff. The listener is led on by this pretence for just long enough before the track takes off in that typically explosive inimitable Tortoise style. The sound changes from thick and condensed to something far more rhythmic and ambient. 

Elsewhere, the sound is less successful, both Northern Something, and Yinxianghechengqi meander around clever, but not transcendent, riffs. Similarly, both tracks exemplify a problem that haunts the record throughout; the distorted compressed production. Not that it always interferes with the listening experience, but in some places it would be nice if there was a little breathing room.

Tortoise albums have always had killer lead tracks, TNT’s self-titled track’s minimalist genius being a personal favourite, and Beacon’s High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In generally keeps with this rule. Still, though, where the aforementioned TNT and Standard’s Seneca really take off after a couple of minutes, High Class... is a little directionless which detracts from the initial promise.

Something that I have always loved about this band is their apparently endless creativity and in this regard Beacons doesn’t disappoint. If anything, it makes me hope they’d get back and record another album soon as they’ve definitely proved, if ever there was any doubt, that they can continue to surprise and create original and exciting music.  My personal favourite, closer Charteroak Foundation really does this in spades, juxtaposing a melancholic guitar and keyboard with a beautifully syncopated beat to enormous effect. Likewise, the more I listen to this record, the more it grows on me. So, despite feeling that this is a good, rather than great, album, my score for it may have gone up a point or so by the end of the year. Here’s to the return of Tortoise...