Live From Chicago Issue #40

Tortoise resurfaces with a little more grit

By Jennifer Kelly
Published: August 1st, 2009 | 12:00am

The Chicago jazz-rock-dub-techno quintet has been constructing complicated grooves since the mid-1990s. Live or in the studio, Tortoise can execute the most difficult multi-player improvisations with razor-sharp intensity, each member’s part interlocking like mismatched gears at irregular intervals. Yet, according to multi-instrumentalist Dan Bitney, the band has been moving away from its signature clarity and precision, towards a rougher, more immediate sound.

“When we started, everyone in the band was burned out on grunge and hard rock power trios,” says Bitney. “We wanted to do this other thing.” Indeed, Tortoise’s self-titled debut, released in 1994, had a spacious, almost underwater feel, as far removed from conventional rock as a rock record could be. But as the band progressed, it began playing more live shows, and the studio recordings started to incorporate more of the gritty dissonance and energy of live performance. “We’ve become more aggressive with each record,” says Bitney.

Beacons of Ancestorship, out on Thrill Jockey, is perhaps the most driving, noise-infused Tortoise album yet, a sound honed during the frequent live performances in the five years since the last album of original material, It’s All Around You, (2004, Thrill Jockey) was released.

“There’s a whole other live side of the band that doesn’t always come through in the recordings,” says Bitney. “With this one, there are little sections where you can hear some of that energy.” He mentions, in particular, the final section of “High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In,” a complex, multi-sectioned song. Yet at the end, this track resolves into a driving, pummeling beat (that’s Bitney) that hints at the propulsion of a Tortoise performance.

With such intricate arrangements of guitars, bass, synth, drums, and even vibraphones, it’s safe to assume that Tortoise will never be a straight-forward rock band. Its five members (Doug McCombs, John McEntire, Jeff Parker, John Herndon, and Bitney) continually switch between instruments. This rare ambidexterity gives the band a deep communal understanding of how each element of the music works. The interaction on any given Tortoise album is so fluid that terms like “bass player” or “drummer” make no sense. Each member of Tortoise is an independent, moving element that contributes in different ways and on different instruments to each piece of music.

Moreover, given that three of five members are trained as percussionists, rhythmic complexity is a given, as patterns built in three-, four-, and five-based time signatures intersect in geometrically intricate ways. Still, complexity itself has never been the goal; “I personally love music made by just a guitar player and a drummer,” says Bitney, citing the Minutemen as one of his favorite groups.

Intentional or not, it is this unique instrumental prowess combined with rock intensity that allows Tortoise to easily mingle with many genres. “I feel lucky that our music works as well at a jazz club as it does at a rock club,” says Bitney, though he adds that Tortoise’s music has never worked for late night TV, due to an industry-wide ban on instrumental bands. “I want to know who wrecked it for us,” he jokes. “Was it the Ventures?”