Tortoise, Beacons of Ancestorship

Tortoise wasn’t the first band to receive the “post-rock” tag, but over time they’ve become its most lauded and recognized practitioner. As the term becomes increasingly associated with the crest-and-valley dynamics and soporific emotional outpourings of guitar-based bands like Explosions In The Sky, though, these 5-to-7 men have continued to enliven the formal trappings of rock music (regularly extended with marimbas and vibraphones) with tropes and tonalities from a variety of not-rock musics.

If any fault could be found with the band’s expansive back catalog, it’s that no recording has captured the frenetic, funk-informed catharsis of their live performance. This fault is corrected on their most recent Thrill Jockey release, Beacons of Ancestorship, wherein the band plays up the dance-party facet of their muse.

The record starts with “High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In,” previously available as one of the tracks on the Record Store Day treat Record Storeism. Familiar Tortoisian elements dominate — shuffling drums and a supple dubwise bassline filtered through John McIntire’s crisp production. Presently, a SOMA-selected analog synth takes over, promising a comfy eight-odd minutes of Chicago cool.

Just as the listener settles in for the unobtrusive marimba-draped wallpaper of Millions Now Living Will Never Die, however, Tortoise changes the game, switching to unapologetic funk mode. Just as you prepare to start struttin’, however, the band moves halfway back to familiar territory with a Can-like motorik overdrive.

Similar impulses break out on “Northern Something,” which spices up its second-line dancehall shake with the acid squelch of a 303, and “Monument Six One Thousand,” which swaggers along atop a hard-hitting electro beat, chiming guitar melodies notwithstanding. The blink-and-it’s-gone “Penumbra,” clocking in at barely more than a minute, sounds like the pre-battle warm-up to some lost face-off between Kool Keith and MF Doom.

Lest the reader expect Beacons of Ancestorship to veer too far into DJ territory, Tortoise keeps things discontinuous with their gestures familiar and surprising. “Prepare Your Coffin” bears the emotional heft of The Brave And The Bold, their covers record with Bonnie “Prince” Billy. The uninitiated listener would be hard-pressed to find anything “post-” about the rock tune here.

The most jarring departure of the whole album, however, is the impossibly-titled “Yinxianghechenqi” — Tortoise’s first foray into punk. There’s nothing mannered or stately about the blood-and-guts bassline Doug McCombs lays down, nor the circle-pit-inducing drumbeat. There’s more than a hint of Devo in the circuit-bending leads of the synths, but the song is a rager.

Perhaps as means of apology for unapologetically throwing down, the last of the song’s three-and-a-half minutes pulls back into shallow pools of guitar fuzz, before leading into the well-worn trail of Morricone worship on “The Fall Of Seven Diamonds Plus One.”

On balance, Beacons of Ancestorship offers listeners a half-dozen innovating tunes interspersed among five that sit more comfortably in the Tortoise continuum. It is a shame that their recent U.S. tour consisted of only seven dates — if such songs manage to sound so fierce on record, one can only imagine how dazzling their live interpretation must be.