today im going to take you a magical instrumental avant-garde journey courtesy of tortoise. i dont exactly know what avant-garde means, but im pretty sure that it sums up tortoise pretty well, but ive been wrong before when it comes to describing music using words whose meanings i dont really know. the other day someones facebook status said “listening to neo-classical metal, yes it exists”. i replied that i think a lot of muse songs sound like neo-classical metal. melodic like classical music, but heavy like metal. imagine my embarassment when someone else chimed in to say “technically, no”. i was humiliated and defeated. luckily we only have 1 mutual friend, so nobody else will ever know about it. the point is, i dont know what a lot of fancy words mean.

just to be safe, i just looked up the definition of avant-garde (but i stopped at the part about modernism and postmodernism, because i for sure dont know what those mean). according to wikipedia, however, the debate is really whether tortoise is post-rock or progressive rock. no mention of avant-garde (what about the dinner party scene in beetlejuice? does that qualify?). wrong again. all i know is that the tortoise show at the blind pig last year was definitely the first non-orchestral show ive ever been to that included three to four xylophones and/or marimbas and/or vibraphones, all of which were played simultaneously during “ten day interval” with drums and keys chiming in. and everyone in the band played just about every instrument, and it was pretty sweet. and thats all i need to know. you can keep your fancy words with their fancy definitions that include other fancy words.

as for this specific song, it was like at first listen. im pretty sure this was the last song of their encore at last falls show. whats not to love about jazzy interludes, quasi-tempo fluctuations and tons of key changes? my other top choices for this post were “six pack” and the aforementioned “ten day interval”, but i thought this track summed up tortoise more completely. if youre new to the group, i would recommend starting out with their “standards” album and seeing how that goes. i dont think i knew this, but they share drummer john mcentire with the sea and cake, who are overall much jazzier and less blatantly experimental and not all instrumental. looking back, i was introduced to both bands on the same day, and ive kind of thought of them as a pair ever since. this post was kind of bad so i hope you think the song is better than kind of bad.

tortoise – blackjack

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