Tortoise
Standards (Thrill Jockey)
With their latest full-length offering, Chicago’s principal instrumental rock collective have once again proved themselves well beyond the reach of their legions of imitators. Theirs is an uncanny technical proficiency and studio standard that’s as obsessive as it is inspired and leads, again and again, to the cleanest, most exact sound imaginable. Standards opens with “Seneca,” John McEntire’s drums bashing alongside Jeff Parker’s austere guitar repetitions until the tune finds its funky feet, turns into a fragmented, robotic melody, and then fades back into fuzz before seguing into the next song, “Eros,” a loopy bit of marimba set to clipped and swinging drum beats. So goes the rest of the LP, incorporating a sky-wide palette of sounds and styles into the ever-so-methodical and precise production foundation that has historically been Tortoise. While this collection reeks with “The Future of Rock Music” tag the band has come to define, Standards has its share of wandering ghosts from rock’s past as well. There’s bassist Doug McCombs’ further investigation of Ennio Morricone on the slow and languorous “Firefly,” and I’ll be damned if that ain’t Mr. Zappa himself lurking at the end of the schizophrenically genius “‘Benway.” Though occasionally feinting at the rock-anthemic, leaning hard on the simple melody of “Blackjack” or the guitar-vibes duet of “Six Pack,” Standards, like all Tortoise albums thus far, lives ultimately and most effectively in the intellect rather than the gut. And there, it reigns supreme.
This article appears in April 27 • 2001.