Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship

Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship

I really don’t dance. But listening to this new Tortoise album, damn I wish I did. In fact, listening to Beacons of Ancestorship for too long makes me get involuntary muscular twitches that could soon escalate into dancing. I’m guessing here a few people are going to be scratching their heads and wondering if I’ve got the right band. The Tortoise we all know and love are a cerebral instrumental rock/jazz/misc outfit more likely to make us think and soundtrack our sense of sophistication that tap our toes.

It was noticeable on their last release – 2004’s It’s All Around You – that they were starting to get themselves pigeonholed as a band more likely to affect your brain than your heart, your feet or your genitals. Tortoise always seemed to stray away from prescribed genres, to flirt with a bit of post-rock here, a bit of funk there and so on but always to carve out a niche for their own. The problem was that this niche was becoming so well-worn they were in danger of creating a genre all of their own and never escaping it.

Maybe that’s why it has taken them five years to create their follow up, they needed to find a way out of the ghetto of their own creation. And it is apparent from listening to the opening 3 tracks of Beacons that they’ve done this by employing some driving danceable rhythms and made a record you can enjoy on more than just an intellectual level. All the Tortoise sonic trademarks are there: layers of keyboards, complex drumming patterns, sudden changes of tempo, melodies played by competing guitars and glockenspiels. But there’s a sense of freedom and fun that’s married to a sense of direction and purpose, probably for the first time since their classic Millions Now Living Will Never Die.

I suppose what a lot of people will want from a Tortoise review is to know “is it as good as Millions Now Living?” To which the answer is: no. No it is not. But if you were to get rid of all the records that you own that aren’t as good as Millions Now Living Will Never Die then I guarantee that you’d have some very bare shelves and an exceedingly empty iPod. There isn’t anything on Beacons that’ll have your jaw hanging open in amazement as you might have had when you first heard ‘Djed’ but it’s still a fantastic record and one that you’ll have great fun listening to.

One of the strengths of Beacons is the fact that they are still prepared to take risks on many of the tracks and try new things. For example, ‘Yinxianghechegqi’ comes roaring out of the speakers like a stoner rock classic; its overdriven bass wouldn’t sound out of place on a Melvins’ song. It has to be said though that for the final third of the album though that they do go back into their comfort zone though; there are a few tracks that are typical ‘cocktail jazz’ Tortoise, offering nothing we haven’t heard from many times before.

But when they are good, they are really good. I played ‘Prepare Your Coffin’, the brilliant second track, to some colleagues of mine at work. Cue total and utter bemusement: “what is this? It sounds like the soundtrack to an arcade racing game!” claims the middle aged guy sat opposite me. I suppose it does; it sounds like its going somewhere fast and its having real fun getting there.

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