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[pat101]

I just picked up the new 3 CD 1 DVD box set and it's really gotten me back into my love for Tortoise, I saw them at the Intonation Festival last year and they were quite fantastic. Any fans?

[E. Spaceman]

I love tortoise, especially with Pajo in it.

[pat101]

Apparently I got this box set a little earlier than the wide release (it was being sold at the pitchfork fest) so when it does get released I highly reccomend it, I've got two discs down and it's rather fantastic so far.

[Felix_]

I'll have to keep my eye open for that box set. I haven't seen it anywhere and I really like Tortoise! I remember hearing "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" and I loved it. I thought their last record that I heard "It's All Around You" was also quite good.

[robert g]

i can always go for tortoise.
'djed' is one of the best songs of all time and i don't care what anyone says.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes!



Felix, may I suggest you also listen to Standards, from 2000? You can skip TNT from 1998, it's mostly boring slightly-proggy lazy jazz. But Standards is definitely an really interesting, musically fun album.

[greenMonkey]

I would have to disagree.  I get bored by Standards, and I think TNT is Tortoise's best album, although admittedly I have not spent enough time listening to Millions Now Living Will Never Die.  It's All Around You is okay, but not as good as TNT.

[robert g]

I would have to disagree.  I get bored by Standards, and I think TNT is Tortoise's best album, although admittedly I have not spent enough time listening to Millions Now Living Will Never Die.  It's All Around You is okay, but not as good as TNT.

Hmm, I might have to give TNT a re-listen? Standards is awesome though, I can't believe you think it's boring, especially the intro of Seneca! OH MAN.

Definitely give Millions Now Living Will Never Die another shot, man, you won't regret it.

[pat101]

my vote goes to TNT

[öde]

I did not put Millions Now... on my mp3 player and now I am at college and I regret it.

[JMoney2001]

Tortoise rages! What a good band! Im a fan of TNT personally.

[jeph]

More like BOREtoise, lol amirite

Seriously though, they don't do much for me. I find Do Make Say Think much more interesting to listen to.

[Hat]

I actually picked up an album by these guys and some other dude on a whim the other day at the record store and I really like it. Upon closer inspection it appears to be a covers album. Basically, all the fan-wank in the world wasn't quite as compelling as a pretty picture of some deers, and now I would really like to get into some of their original stuff.

Is there a kind of entry level album of theirs that I should try to get, or should I just go for a mad grab at the first one I see?

[pat101]

I started with TNT and I quite enjoyed it so I'd go with that.

[Merkava]

TNT, so far, is my favorite. Standards is interesting so far, but it seems so...sterile.

[Johnny C]

I actually picked up an album by these guys and some other dude on a whim the other day at the record store and I really like it.

Surely you mean The Brave And The Bold. The "other dude" is Will Oldham! They cover "Thunder Road"! It's pretty awesome.

[greenMonkey]

I need to give The Brave and the Bold another listen.  This guy I know has a poster for it, it looks hella sweet on his wall.

[TheFuriousWombat]

tortois is interesting, but, and i'm sure i'll recieve flack for this, they can't hold a candle to do make say think. dmst, often compared to tortois, blows them out of the water, imho.

[TheFuriousWombat]

it's true they have a different approach, but it is not uncommon at all to read an article about do make say think and find them compared to tortois. because tortois predates dmst, and b/c, while the approach is unique to each band, they are certainly not on the opposite end of the musical specturm, each playing slow burn, instrumental rock with certain jazzish influences. i would never listen to one of the bands and confuse them with the other. the fact of the matter is, however, that they often are compared, not just by fans or nonfans but by music critics as well. personally, i prefer dmst's approach. i find tortois a bit too tedious at times, and often uninteresting.

[*Sights*]

...I never get why people call Do Make Say Think and bands in the same vein background music. I know they fit just right in the defintion, but to me music like this should be listened to with complete attention, i dislike picturing people hearing the music while doing something else as if the music itself was boring. I'm not too knowledgeable, but what i think of when i hear the term background music i imagin something ignorable, while most DMST's work sound ecstatic to me.

I love DMST, so i guess i should give Tortoise a chance..There seem to be differing opinion as to which of their albums is the best, so any recommendation, perhaps something close to DMST so i have an easy way of getting into them?

[TheFuriousWombat]

...I never get why people call Do Make Say Think and bands in the same vein background music. I know they fit just right in the defintion, but to me music like this should be listened to with complete attention, i dislike picturing people hearing the music while doing something else as if the music itself was boring. I'm not too knowledgeable, but what i think of when i hear the term background music i imagin something ignorable, while most DMST's work sound ecstatic to me.

I love DMST, so i guess i should give Tortoise a chance..There seem to be differing opinion as to which of their albums is the best, so any recommendation, perhaps something close to DMST so i have an easy way of getting into them?

i couldn't agree more with your first comment. music by bands like dmst certainly should not be listenend to as background music. the music in this genre tends to be subtle. to appreciate it, you have to pay attention to it. if you have it on purely as an ambient background noise, you'll miss so much of what the music has to offer.

[Johnny C]

I disagree. Watch me, Tommy.

Watch me stop breathing.

[TheFuriousWombat]

There is no way you can sit and listen to music and do absolutely nothing else.

There is no way.

i would be to differ. the first time i listen to an album, any album, i sit in a comfortable chair, usually with minimal lightning, and listen to the album in it's entierty with stereo headphones on. i guess technically you're right, i am sitting and moving a little bit so i'm not doing nothing.

[TheFuriousWombat]

I'll bet you doodle or look at amateur nude photography.

There's no way you just sit there.

no no, i save the nude photos for the third or fourth time around. those are the times i test the music to see if it will work as background music, or as music that works even if not being paid much attention to. the first time, however, i truly do just sit.

[Merkava]

I find it extremely hard to just sit there and listen to music. I can sit on a bus/car and look out the window and listen to music, my favorite way of doing so, but sitting in the dark with my headphones on is hard. I can never find the time, and I would never get through my CD collection.

[greenMonkey]

I can do other things and appreciate the subtleties of music at the same time.  Plus, if you miss something, you'll discover it later, and so continue to find the music interesting as opposed to hearing it once and then hearing the same thing every time you play it.

I do need to check out DMST though.  Sadly it probably won't happen for a while unless I download some because I have a huge list of albums that I need to buy and I am no where near getting through that.

[TheFuriousWombat]

I can do other things and appreciate the subtleties of music at the same time.? Plus, if you miss something, you'll discover it later, and so continue to find the music interesting as opposed to hearing it once and then hearing the same thing every time you play it.

I do need to check out DMST though.? Sadly it probably won't happen for a while unless I download some because I have a huge list of albums that I need to buy and I am no where near getting through that.

subtleties can definetly be appreciated if you're doing other stuff and listening at the same time. i'm the first to defend that statement. i just have a strange routine when it comes to getting new albums in thier entierty. i know i'd pick up the subtleties anyway, but it's a habit and i'm vaugely ocd and don't like changing my habits, heh.

[pat101]

I haven't heard ANY DMST anywhere in particular I should start?

[öde]

When I want to check out an album I focus on it, otherwise I can't form an opinion on it.

"Did you like The Crane Wife"
"If you don't put a question mark I'm not answering"
"Did you like The Crane Wife?"
"Uh, yeah"
"Which track was your favourite?"
"Um, I think I liked the one near the beginning"

[*Sights*]

The one track one their website is good enough to start off:

http://www.southern.com/southern/band/DOMAK/CST25.php

[ScrambledGregs]

New-Guy-Semi-Bump

Long winded music critic style post, ho!!

Tortoise, Tortoise, Tortoise. I love Tortoise for reasons even I can't fathom. It would just be as easy to say "I love them because they're boring" and stop there, but I don't actually think they're boring. I fully acknowledge the reasons why others don't like them, but damnit if I still don't love them.

Their first album took me a long time to get into. It's much more minimalist, slow, and ambient than their other albums. I can definitely see why so many people were using the label post-rock even back then, because way back in '94, there wasn't anything that sounded like it. Sure, sure, Talk Talk and Slint. But on their own, neither Talk Talk nor Slint sound much like Tortoise.

Millions Now Living Will Never Die is the album that made me fall in love with Tortoise. 'Djed' is astonishing, especially coming from the background that I did. A 20-minute track that keeps my interest all the way through?? Not only that, but I think 'Along The Banks of Rivers' is one of the best 'album ending tracks' I've ever heard. I often use it to wrap up mixes, particularly if they have a melancholy or cinematic vibe to them.

TNT is a hard one to figure. I vacillate between loving it and finding it overlong and ponderous. Seeing as how Jeff Parker had joined the band, and came from a jazz background, TNT has a more jazzy feel than other Tortoise albums, yet it's also more experimental and more clinical at the same time.

To this day I think I will maintain that Standards is the best Tortoise album. 'Seneca' is a hell of a way to start an album, and is one of the noisiest things they've ever done. If TNT was the jazzy album, and their debut was the ambient album, then Standards is the techno album. Does anyone else think that 'Monica' sort of sounds like Daft Punk?? At any rate, Standards was the first Tortoise album I bought, but that doesn't account for my love for it, since I didn't start to love Tortoise until I got Millions.

I resisted buying It's All Around You for well over two years because of the mixed reviews it had gotten. I kept asking myself, do I really want more of the same?? Sure, I love Tortoise, but there's so many other albums I'd rather have. When I saw it used at my local record store, I snatched it up....and, I really like it. If this were released at any other time in the band's history, it wouldn't have gotten any of the criticism that it has. I realize that sounds stupid, but taken OUT OF the context of Tortoise's discography, these are great songs: 'Stretch (You Are All Right)' is addictive in the same way that good old 'Ry Cooder' was; I love the way that 'Unknown' slowly builds to the noisy, drum driven 'Dot/Eyes'; I think 'Salt The Skies' is the perfect closer to a underrated album.

The new box set is great, though I would only recommend it to hardcore fans. Tortoise has a remix artist's point of view on their own songs--by this I mean most of the b-sides, outtakes, and singles are wholly or partially made up of snippets of songs you've already heard on their albums. Of course the third disc is the 'Rhythms, Resolutions, and Clusters' remix EP, which makes their first album even more ambient than it already was, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your taste. My only complaint is that the DVD is underwhelming. There is a great 30 minute-ish live set of Tortoise floating around YouTube, which I thought would be included on here because it looks professionally done, but it's not. IMO the footage from the jazz festival circa '98 on the DVD is crap, and their performance of 'Senenca' while clearly miming in ape costumes is not as funny as it sounds. Oh well.

/long winded music critic style post