TORTOISE

Tortoise: Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire, Jeff Parker.
Additional personnel: Kelly Hogan (vocals).
Recorded at Soma Electronic Music Studios, Chicago, Illinois.
In the second half of the 1990s, Chicago's Tortoise embodied the forward-looking, genre-bending, usually instrumental style that came to be known as post-rock. They've been refining their approach ever since, and IT'S ALL AROUND YOU offers an extremely concise version of the almost-indefinable Tortoise sound. Many of the familiar sonic signposts are here--the jazzy vibes, the polyrhythmic drum patterns, and the Morricone-influenced, heavy-reverb guitar. The overdubbed layers of vocals on "The Lithium Stiffs" are a new development, marking the first time anyone in the band has opened his mouth while the tape was rolling, but, overall, the album's blend of funk grooves, colorful electronics, and jazz-rock harmonies will feel warmly familiar to longtime fans.
Perhaps most notable is the fact that Tortoise seems to have honed its compositional chops to their finest point to date, making the melodies and structures of the pieces some of the most fully realized in the group's repertoire. At this point, the band is like a 21st-century equivalent to late-period Weather Report; they've already defined a new combination of jazz, rock, and electronics, and are strutting their stuff as the kings of their stylistic castle.

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