tortoise - beacons of ancestorship

awesome album. different as always but definately tortoise and definately awesome.

lovely soundscapes and design by John McEntire as usual. I enjoy his sound production probably more than anything else by anyone else Ive heard. only Ulver comes close.

  Atop said:

  IRARI said:

prepare your coffin video

 

that could be my new favourite video of all time...!!!

 

IDM as FUCK!

 

UHHH!

lol is this all san francisco/bay area stuff?

got this yesterday because i'm old school and wait till it comes out at the record store. listened to it about 4 times. some amazing tracks on there. and it's only going to get better over time like a good tortoise album always does. gonna love it. yay, tortoise delivers.

giviing this my first drunk headphones listen now. fucking loving the shit out of this album. god i love tortoise so hard. this is fucking brilliant. FUCK YES>!!

YOU DA MAN!

Maybe that's it -- I just need to be drunk?

maybe? it's great sober too. i think you just have to have good taste ;)

This record is the musical archetype.....

i wouldn't mind is Tortoise stopped using so much distortion on the entire mix

i miss the production era of TNT where if there was distortion it was just on the guitar, not on the bass, and drums as well

it's growing on me! i still think some tracks are a bit nothing-y though.

as an experienced tortoise album appreciator, i know to appreciate the nothing-y tracks because, although they are nothing now.... as the album grows and grows on you, one day the strong tracks take a back seat to the nothing-y tracks because you're interested in the other more subtle parts of such a brilliant album that you thought was shouldered on the strong tracks alone, and then you realize how much everything makes sense. especially, ESPECIALLY when you see it live. i'm so impressed with tortoise. they dont stop delivering. they're my number 2 behind aphex. this album is on point. the virtuoso guitar solo in "coffin" is my favorite thing right now. it's so 80s but it's so fucking cool at the same time. i can just picture it live.

good point fred. tortoise are fucking excellent live, hope they come to australia again soon.

also "coffin" is more 70s than 80s imo. as evidenced by this track, which by the sound of it tortoise ripped off:

and a bit of this as well:

and i mean 'ripped off' in the nicest possible way, of course! more like an homage or something hehe.

  modey said:

good point fred. tortoise are fucking excellent live, hope they come to australia again soon.

 

also "coffin" is more 70s than 80s imo. as evidenced by this track, which by the sound of it tortoise ripped off:

 

and a bit of this as well:

 

and i mean 'ripped off' in the nicest possible way, of course! more like an homage or something hehe.

yeah definitely you are right it is more 70s than 80s

i just biked in to say that i've never really gotten toroise, there are a few songs i like but fred's hardon confuses me

*bikes out*

  essines said:

i just biked in to say that i've never really gotten toroise, there are a few songs i like but fred's hardon confuses me

 

*bikes out*

what about tortoise corpse?

holy shit, this album is amazing! it has grown on me like a motherfucker.

I still need to play it more but so far I agree with the comments on the distortion, I wish it was a little cleaner. I noticed that the first time I heard Prepare Your Coffin before the album came out. Anyway I've only played it about 3 times since release day. That's because I'm always getting new stuff though, it's not really a reflection of my feelings on the album.

Anyhow, Pivot. Their first album Make Me Love You is awesome. It's cleanliness reminds me of TNT a bit. Their Warp album O Soundtrack My Heart (the first one I heard) has a similar metallic sound that Beacons has, it's definitely harder and honestly a bit generic sounding. So for any of you judging them on O Soundtrack My Heart, check out Make Me Love You.

Also, have any of you heard Cougar? Their first album Law was produced by John McEntire and it's very very good. I've been anxiously awaiting their new album Patriot which just came out this week. I haven't heard it yet, it's on order and hopefully it's in today or tomorrow's mail).

cool, yeah i was wondering why Pivot were so loved afrter hearing the same one you heard. It was well done and the instrumentation was good but it felt a little too tortoise bitey

and yes tortoise is AMAZING live, it's rare to see a band full of such talented musicians playing their album tracks perfectly live

Hopefully they do some more US dates after their European tour...I don't know if I missed a show here but there are only a few US dates listed, all centered around the midwest.

I don't really care for this album at all, my least favourite of theirs.

  On 6/27/2009 at 6:37 AM, modey said:

good point fred. tortoise are fucking excellent live, hope they come to australia again soon.

 

also "coffin" is more 70s than 80s imo. as evidenced by this track, which by the sound of it tortoise ripped off:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z1kLUP3ohg&feature=related

 

 

and i mean 'ripped off' in the nicest possible way, of course! more like an homage or something hehe.

The second half of this track is heavenly, I wish I could get my hands on the new remaster of Seconds Out

I listened to this album today for the first while in a while, and I still think it's brilliant. Sounds very different and yet like nobody but Tortoise. Gigantes and Prepare Your Coffin are immense. I even download the iTunes edition after buying the CD just for Ice Ice Gravy, which is an interesting listen.

  On 9/21/2009 at 11:25 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

In the meantime I've been listening to Isotope 217, which has members of Tortoise and chicago underground collective. They have a really laid back jazz sound which I dig.

Which Isotope 217 album would you recommend for a Tortoise fan?

Just saw Tortoise last night, Prefuse 73 opened for them. It was a pretty sick show. I had heard bad things about Prefuse live, but he actually had an insanely good set. There was a vocalist with him, but he only used the mic a little and when he did it was basically random noises being put through tons of effects that worked really well with the music. Hearing tracks like Nature's Uplifting Revenge pounding through such a small venue (I was probably only like 5 or 6 feet away from him) was a really amazing experience, which needless to say was enhanced by a little bit of psiloccybin. :)

Tortoise's set was pretty bomb. They played some Beacons stuff, but also a lot of their older classics from TNT and such. Plus it was interesting that literally every band member played almost every instrument at some point. I also really dug the whole two drummers effect. They would be both playing some crazy complex syncopated rhythm exactly in time with each other. Very talented musicians, those guys.

Also, does anyone happen to know of any good quality post-Ampexian Prefuse shows up? I would love to get my hands on one. :)

Man I'm really hoping Tortoise comes to town pretty soon.