TORTOISE - Beacons of Ancestorship (2009)

Returning after a five-year gap (which, granted, included a box set and a collaborative record with Bonnie "Prince" Billy), Tortoise confronted a pair of age-old musical questions: does anyone really care about an experimental rock group after 15 years, and does said group actually have anything to say after that length of time? After all, the sound of rock's future circa 1994-1996 was beginning to sound tired by the time of 2004's It's All Around You, and the sense was growing that Tortoise should call it quits and begin accumulating enough years of inactivity to eventually be rediscovered, remastered, and reunited. Beacons of Ancestorship neatly squashes all those questions and assumptions, revealing a band that is just as fascinated with sound, just as intrigued by its myriad possibilities, and just as unerring in presenting those ideas in the form of entertaining instrumental music as when it debuted in 1993. The time signatures are constantly shifting, the lights of vitality and inventiveness Tortoise displayed 12 years earlier are completely undimmed, and the reference points for their music are constantly expanding (on tap here, among the dub and Krautrock and minimalism and jazz, is surprisingly abrasive punk for "Yinxianghechengqi"). The opener is eight minutes of bliss, wheeling and turning every few minutes, eventually leading to a great full-band jam that looks back to an earlier age of Chicago post-rock with a closing that's strikingly reminiscent of early Trans Am. The spaghetti Western impressionism of "The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One" would be perfect for their excellent TNT LP, and the group gets positively off the wall at the end, with a pair of songs ("Monument Six One Thousand" and "Charteroak Foundation") that pit guitar lines over drums-and-bass tracks that don't sound as if they were recorded for the same selection. It can be incredibly difficult for an experimental group to continue experimenting for years on end without getting stale, but Tortoise achieve that balance effortlessly.

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TORTOISE - TNT (1998)

Expected by many to continue leading the post-rock brigade into a new fusion with dub and electronics, Tortoise instead turned yet another corner with their third album, TNT. Adding guitarist Jeff Parker to cement their musicianship as well as their connections to Chicago's fertile jazz/avant-garde scene, the band returned with a record of post-modern cool jazz, only slightly informed by the dub, Krautrock, and electronics of Millions Now Living Will Never Die. It shows from the first few seconds -- a lazy, slightly free drum solo frames a few tentative guitar chords and some teased effects, before the band kicks in with a holds-barred jam that encompasses a tremulous solo from trumpeter Rob Mazurek. With engineer/mixer/drummer John McEntire and company adding only a few post-production frills to the mix -- and those so complementary and subdued that they rarely even sound like effects -- TNT comes off as a surprisingly organic record. The evocative Spanish-style guitar on "I Set My Face to the Hillside" plays over an assortment of playground sounds, while "The Suspension Bridge at Iguazú Falls" deconstructs a classically angular Tortoise groove and re-emerges with an evocative, deeply affecting groove over shimmering vibes and precision guitar lines. There are plenty of nods to post-rock touchstones like Krautrock ("Swing From the Gutters"), dub, and minimalism ("Ten-Day Interval"), but Tortoise hardly sounds like a difficult band here. Instead of forcing studio experimentation to become an end to itself, the band mastered -- with a single, deft statement -- the far more difficult lesson of making technology work for the music.

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TORTOISE - Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996)

Tortoise's production expertise hit an early peak with Millions Now Living Will Never Die, a work that not only references studio-centric forms like dub and electronica, but actively welds them to the group's aesthetic of sturdily constructed indie rock. The centerpiece is the 21-minute opener "Djed," a multi-part track which brought Tortoise's already impressive compositional abilities to a grand scale. It's almost a history of influences in miniature, first referencing tape music and dub for several minutes, then moving on to Krautrock with a chugging section incorporating wheezing organ and understated guitar chords. Halfway through, the band takes on minimalism with repeating figures of organ and vibes, then return to the green fields of their debut with a final few minutes of moody indie rock (though even this is spiced with a scratchy rhythm and various noise effects). With "Djed," Tortoise made experimental rock do double duty as evocative, beautiful music. The other songs on Millions Now Living are hardly afterthoughts, though; highlights "Glass Museum" and "The Taut and Tame" display the band quickly growing out of the angular indie rock ghetto with exquisite music, constructed with more thought and played with more emotion, than any of their peers.

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Re up Vic Chesnutt's North Star Deserter

North Star DeserterIn his liner notes to Vic Chesnutt's North Star Deserter, Jem Cohen wrote, "I make films, I'm no record producer. But I needed to bring these particular people together in this particular place . . . I thought they might hit it off." Despite his lack of previous experience in the recording studio, Cohen's instincts were right on the money; he teamed Chesnutt with Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and a handful of other notable accompanists (including Fugazi's Guy Picciotto, Bruce Cawdron of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and Chad Jones and Nadia Moss of Frankie Sparrow) for sessions at Montreal's Hotel2Tango Studios, and the result is a truly extraordinary recording. Chesnutt is a songwriter of singular talents, embracing a homey but keenly intellig

ent expressionism in his songs that conveys a genuine, often touching humanity, but his collaborators on North Star Deserter have taken his music in a powerful new direction. Rather than simply filling out Chesnutt's melodies, these musicians have crafted soundscapes that often turn these songs into great chaotic symphonies, with Chesnutt's simple but confident acoustic guitar anchoring the whole. Sometimes the accompaniment is simple and subtle, as on "Warm," "Over," and "Rattle," while elsewhere the musicians truly do resemble an orchestra; a small string section adds an air of ominous grandeur to "Glossolalia," a mighty organ brings striking dynamics on "Everything I Say," a mass of harmonies and reverb-soaked guitar meshes gloriously with "You Are Never Alone," washes of sound ebb and flow through the atmospheric "Rustic City Fathers," and the ensemble rises into a glorious fusion of beauty and noise on "Debriefing" and "Marathon." On North Star Deserter, the musicians working with Vic Chesnutt serve as collaborators rather than simple accompanists, and they've truly brought out the best in one another; this is powerful, adventurous music that's as challenging as it is beautiful, and ranks with Chesnutt's finest work to date.

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Pez - Fragilinvencible

Lista de Temas

1- Telarañas
2- Phantom Power
3- Creo que amamos el dolor
4- La gota
5- La estética del resentimiento
6- Hondo II
7- Espíritu inquieto
8- Haciendo real el sueño imposible
9- Domando tormentas
10- Malas noticiasr
11- Supersupersticioso
12- Campos de inconsciencia
13- Gala

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