Post-rockers Tortoise can still surprise 35 years into their career

The term ‘post-rock’ originated in the early ‘90s, and came to be associated with bands with a certain cinematic sweep. Mogwai, Sigur Rós, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor are prime examples, outputting slow, often-instrumental tracks that build in intensity, and crescendo sometime after the five minute mark.

Similar to ‘post-punk’, however, the actual definition is quite slippery. Coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds, (who went on to discover earlier uses of the term, the first from 1967), it was originally meant to define a burgeoning cluster of undefineable acts, including electronic ones like Aphex Twin (who would end up tagged with the equally nebulous ‘IDM’ or Intelligent Dance Music).

Reynolds later clarified his ideas for Wire magazine, with the handy summation “using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes”, but that first iteration seemed to go much wider, suggesting music that “came from the indie scene but had no limitations,” according to Kieran Hebden [Four Tet].

Speaking with The Quietus, he said “any instrumentation would go, any song lengths, any format.”

It’s that description that best fits Tortoise, the Chicago band who were one of the first to be called ‘post-rock’. In the same Quietus piece Tim Gane (Sereolab) describes one of their live performances, saying “everything is included”.

Over the years this has meant different things: Their initial lineup was two bassists and three percussionists. In live shows the band constantly swap instruments, even mid-song, and on record use digital techniques to deconstruct their own work. Their 1998 album TNT fused instruments like marimba and vibraphone with electronic soundscapes.

So, not your traditional rock band. Tortoise had always dabbled in electronics, but following TNT they came more to the fore, with squelchy synths overtaking rhodes pianos. Guitarist Jeff Parker, who joined during that album, came from a jazz background, and brought some of it with him, but beyond that they’re extremely hard to pin down.

Touch is their first release in nine years, and remains unbothered by rules or typical structure. ‘Vexations’ pairs guitar-chug with surf melody, ‘Layered Presence’ chops and pans drum cymbals into artificial permutations, and on ‘Works and Days’ layers of keyboard drones build to an emotive core.

That’s just the first three tracks, and while genre may be out the window, it all feels recognisably like Tortoise. There’s a huge amount of care put into the sound of each element, as well as the whole picture, and the influence of dub music can be felt in the way instruments come into focus then recede.

It’s the first of their albums to be recorded with each member in a separate location, (and was evidently a frustrating process), but the results stand alongside much of their best work (if not, in this writer’s opinion, the sky-high peaks of TNT).

It’s that emotional thrust, as on ‘Works and Days’, that makes the project feel less noodly or academic than it otherwise might.

‘Elka’ pounds out an exhilarating techno progression, and ‘Axial Seamount’ packs a similar amount of feeling into a krautrock framework.

‘Promenade À Deux’ and the closing ‘Night Gang’ likewise make the most of their chord progressions; the former delicate and lovely, the latter wounded and bruising.

It’s these moments of emotional sway that set Touch apart from the rest of the Tortoise catalogue. They’re a band who made their name on a lack of limitations, and it’s nice to hear that they can still surprise.

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