Beacons of Ancestorship

Tortoise have been expanding the definition of rock music for over fifteen years. Their latest, Beacons, gives nods to techno, punk, electro, lo-fi noise, cut up beats, heavily processed synths, and mournful, elegiac dirges. This CD is presented in a four panel mini-LP style jacket.

Almost alone among bands of the last two decades, Tortoise is a group that resists easy metaphors and analogies, who can be described as sounding like only themselves, and no one else. Twenty years after its founding, the band's signature and singularly inimitable sound - a fluid intersection of dub, dance, jazz, techno, rock, and classical minimalism with no part overwhelming or dominating the whole - remains an American and international original. Even more unusually, they seem to have arrived at their sound with almost no apprenticeship to speak of: to judge from their early singles and albums alone, they seem to have come into being with their musical identity and DNA fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Further, while the groups has spawned countless imitators, heirs, and follows - sincere, flattering, and otherwise - Tortoise remains unique in the world of contemporary music for their boundless intellectual curiosity, their unmistakable compositional voice, and their synthesis of seemingly contradictory sound worlds far from their doorstep.

Beacons of Ancestorship is Tortoise's sixth full-length album, and their first release of new material in five years, since 2004s It's All Around You.