Artist.......: Tortoise
Album........: Live Au Festival La Route du Rock
Label........: n/a
Genre........: Indie
Catnr........: n/a
Source.......: DVBS
Rip.date.....: 2011-01-30
Str.date.....: 2009-08-00
Quality......: 176kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
Url..........: http://www.myspace.com/tortoise
track title time
1. Live Au Festival La Route du Rock 58:56
* High Class Slim Case Floatin' In
* Prepare Your Coffin
* Minors
* Eros
* The Suspension Bridge At Iguazu Falls
* Monica
* In Sarah, Mencken, Christ, and Beethoven There
* Were Women And Men
* Crest
* Dot / Eyes
* TNT
* Seneca
Runtime 58:56
Size 74.38
Release Notes:
Tortoise revolutionized American indie rock in the mid-'90s by playing down
tried-and-true punk and rock & roll influences, emphasizing instead the
incorporation of a variety of left-field music genres from the past 20 years,
including Krautrock, dub, avant-garde jazz, classical minimalism, ambient and
space music, film music, and British electronica. At odds as well with the
shambling framework of alternative rock's normal song structure, the group -- as
large as a septet, with at times two vibes players -- relied on a crisp
instrumental aesthetic, tied to cool jazz, which practically stood alone in
American indie rock by actually focusing on instrumental prowess and group
interaction. Although the group's unique vision is to an extent the creation of
drummer and master producer John McEntire, most of the other members are
well-connected -- producers and/or participants -- in Chicago's fraternal indie
rock community, which consists of numerous side projects and ongoing bands.
After debuting in 1993 with several singles and an LP, Tortoise's underground
prestige emerged above terra firma with their second album Millions Now Living
Will Never Die; the 21-minute opening track "Djed" was a sublime pastiche of
Krautrock, dub, and cool jazz. Tortoise then linked themselves with the cream of
European electronica (Luke Vibert, Oval, U.N.K.L.E., Spring Heel Jack) to remix
the album on a series of 12" singles. Despite the band's growing reliance on
studio engineering, Tortoise began re-emphasizing their instrumentalist bent in
1998 for third album, TNT.
First formed in Chicago in 1990, Tortoise began when Doug McCombs (bass;
formerly of Eleventh Dream Day) and John Herndon (drums, keyboards, vibes;
formerly with the Poster Children) began experimenting with production
techniques. The duo intended to record on their own as well as provide an
instant rhythm section for needy bands -- inspired by the reggae duo Sly &
Robbie. Next aboard was producer/drummer/vibes-player John McEntire and
guitarist Bundy K. Brown (both former members of Bastro) plus percussionist Dan
Bitney (formerly with the SST hardcore band Tar Babies).
The five-piece recorded 7" singles for both David Wm. Sims' Torsion label and
Thrill Jockey in 1993, then released their eponymous debut on Thrill Jockey one
year later. Much of the album's sound -- restrained indie rock with sublime jazz
influences and a debt to prog-rock -- was pleasant but not quite revolutionary.
Several tracks took a more slanted course, though, sounding like a reaction to
England's ambient/techno scene filtered through the '70s experimentalism of Can
and Faust. Tortoise became an underground classic and spawned the remix work
Rhythms, Resolutions and Clusters -- remixers Jim O'Rourke, Steve Albini, and
Brad Wood -- the album steadily segued from techno and found-sound environment
recordings to feedback ambience and hip-hop -- complete with samples of A Tribe
Called Quest and Minnie Riperton. In 1995, the group released Gamera, a 12"
single on Stereolab's Duophonic label.
Brown later left for solo production work and his band projects Slowpoke and
Directions in Music; Tortoise added bassist David Pajo (formerly of Slint and
also a member of the For Carnation) for second album Millions Now Living Will
Never Die, released in early 1996. Much of the album was similar to the debut,
but the British weeklies and American music magazines championed the strength of
album-opener "Djed" -- which blended a rumbling bass line, scratchy, lo-fi
ambience, and dub techniques into over ten minutes of music before the sounds of
reel-to-reel tape disintegration introduced another passage of calm yet angular
indie rock figures. During the rest of 1995, Tortoise toured with Stereolab in
England and headlined a U.S. tour with 5iveStyle and the Sea and Cake. John
McEntire also remained busy with production, working on Stereolab's Emperor
Tomato Ketchup and eponymous debut LPs from 5iveStyle, Trans Am, and Rome.
Instead of a remix album to accompany Millions Now Living Will Never Die,
Tortoise optioned tracks out to several techno/experimental contemporaries
during 1996. Mo' Wax heroes U.N.K.L.E. recorded a remix of "Djed" on the first
of what became a four-volume series, with later interpretations coming from
Oval, Jim O'Rourke and Bedouin Ascent, Spring Heel Jack, and Luke Vibert, among
others.
By the time recording began in 1998 for Tortoise's third album, TNT, Pajo had
gone to spend time on his Aerial-M project; a longtime group friend, guitarist
Jeff Parker, replaced him. Parker's connection to the fertile Chicago free jazz
community (he's a member of the AACM - Association for the Advancement of
Creative Musicians) served as a signpost to the group's new direction: growing
instrumental prowess and an emphasis on straight-ahead, occasionally
improvisational, indie rock. Tortoise's fourth album Standards, released in
early 2001, maintained that direction, only leavened by many post-recording
tweakings at the band's Soma Studios. Another three-year gap separated Standards
from 2004's It's All Around You. The band then took a break, of sorts,
concentrating on their raft of side projects -- Exploding Star Orchestra, Bumps,
Fflashlights, Powerhouse Sound -- and producing only a collaborative LP with
Bonnie "Prince" Billy, The Brave and the Bold. (They also assembled a box set
titled A Lazarus Taxon.) The group's sixth proper LP, Beacons of Ancestorship,
finally arrived in 2009.