Description:	WELL OOP G/FOLD LP on Thrill Jockey ****inc. Download Code****
	Format:	LP (vinyl)
	Genre(s):	Post-Rock
	Label:	Thrill Jockey
	Price:	£19.99
	Availability:	Sold out / currently unavailable. Sorry!

4
...according to our Brett on 18 June 2009.

I suppose I've had a strange relationship with Tortoise down the years.. For ages they kind of got on my tits even though I had a couple of records by them. I really like those early ones now, the later stuff (including Standards, which everyone else seems to love) I can't really get into so it's a bit of a triumph from a personal point of view that I'm enjoying the new one, Beacons of Ancestorship, as much as I am. There's a definite shift in sound which makes you wonder if one of them found a dusty old box of distortion pedals in their attic one day as some of these tunes are seriously rocking in a surprisingly straightforward way, their jazzier side expressed quite subtly in the time changes amidst the racket. I've got to say that it is a bit worrying how close they get to Mars Volta territory from time to time though. Their more typical melodic experimentation comes more to the fore as the album progresses, augmented by subtle electronic shading, and it brings quite a comforting feel after all these years. Business Lady's well feeling this LP and I've got to say I've not enjoyed one of theirs as much since maybe TNT. If you're a fan that's easily going to be enough of a recommendation for you!

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Sound clips for Beacons Of Ancestorship by Tortoise: on vinyl at Norman Records UK. LP (vinyl), Thrill Jockey, THRILL210LP, £19.99.

What their label says...

· ‘Beacons Of Ancestorship’ is Tortoise’s sixth full-length album, and
their first release of new material in five years, since 2004’s ‘It’s All
Around You’. In the interim, the group also released and toured behind
the 2006 career retrospective box set ‘A Lazarus Taxon’, and an album
of covers with vocalist Will Oldham by the likes of Elton John, Bruce
Springsteen, Richard Thompson and The Minutemen, entitled ‘The
Brave And The Bold’. Additionally, the individual members have kept
busy with various other projects, including but not limited to Exploding
Star Orchestra, Bumps, Fflashlights, and Powerhouse Sound.
· A characteristic Tortoise album is one that traverses an encyclopaedia of
styles and reference points, a document of where musical intersections
and dialogue are occurring at a given moment in time. ‘Beacons Of
Ancestorship’ is no different, with nods to techno, punk, electro, lo-fi
noise, cut-up beats, heavily processed synths, and mournful,
elegiac dirges. We see these ideas working out in compositions like ‘High
Class Slim Came Floatin’ In’, an eight-minute track which playfully
references the world of ecstatic rave and dance culture with a curiously
ambivalent, multi-part suite overlaid with robotic, machine-sounding
melodies that stop and start in several different time signatures before the
song’s ultimate resolution; and again in ‘Yinxianghechengqi’, which
begins as a straightforward uptempo math-rocker before steadily
accelerating into a wall of fuzzy atonal sqwonk.
· CD version is presented in a 4 panel mini-LP style jacket.
· The LP version is pressed on high quality 180 gram virgin vinyl and is
presented in an old-style tip-on gatefold jacket with artworked inner
sleeve and MP3 download coupon.

High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In * Prepare Your Coffin *
Northern Something * Gigantes * Penumbra *
Yinxianghechengqi * The Fall Of Seven Diamonds Plus One *
Minors * Monument Six One Thousand *
De Chelly * Charteroak Foundation