At a Will Oldham show years ago, I met a music fan with the e-mail address [email protected] and was left wondering: How could seemingly innocuous background music—from a band in the same indie circle as Oldham, no less (the two have since recorded a full album together)—drive someone to such a degree of dislike?
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Listening to Beacons of Ancestorship, the first original Tortoise LP in five years, I find myself edging closer to the hater’s point of view. Millions Now Living Will Never Die and TNT might be touchstones of 1990s post-rock instrumentalism, but no one will ever accuse John McEntire’s crew of having an overabundance of heart or soul. And the more I work through Beacons’ (admittedly technically adroit) jazzy/electro-skittish soundscapes, the more I question their very reason for existing. Seriously, who sits around listening to this stuff? Muzak-heads on E? The same folks who think Ratatat is crazy-cool fun, no doubt.
A couple of pieces might make their way onto my iPod: “Yinxianghechengqi,” a noise-punk skronker, or “The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One,” which sounds like it was ripped from an Ennio Morricone spaghetti-Western soundtrack. But mostly, Tortoise’s latest comes off like a giant exercise in pretentious precision—with nothing real at its core to make it very interesting. Hmm, wonder if [email protected] is taken.
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