TORTOISE — Standards (review)

TORTOISE — Standards album cover Album · 2001 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
TORTOISE doesn't believe in stagnation. They have proved from album to album that they are only interested in experimenting in any direction they please. With their fourth album STANDARDS they make avant-garde and experimental rock even weirder and more extreme than previous releases. While they can still be classified as a post-rock act, they have a much looser approach to their music this time around borrowing equally from free form jazz and electronic sound effects all sewn together with a post-production effect. In fact it all kinda makes me think of a trippy electronic band like Coil who delved into the avant-garde jazz world. It is all fairly mellow so don't expect energetic outbursts or anything of the sort.

The music is just weird! It has interesting electronic beats competing with jazzy lounge music and at times the different parts seem to drift off into their own worlds creating a detached sounding wild ride but it usually comes back together somehow. There is a whole random feel to this album as well as it meanders from track to track with little keeping a unifying feel but somehow all being alien enough to make you feel like you are walking through a giant forest of bizarre plant-like creatures on another world where carbon isn't the main bonding element in organic chemistry.

It took many more listens to get into this one as opposed to the albums that came before but it did click with me after I accepted its bizarre charm and adapted to the strangeness that unfolds. TORTOISE prove to me again that they are a unique musical outfit that demands new directions with every move they make and if you have what it takes to keep up with their ambitiousness then you will not be disappointed by this strange concoction of post-rock gone astray.
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