The next time someone tries to tell you that Tortoise are the ultimate post-rock band, take a second to glance over their attire. If they're anything like the groovy daddios and hip cats packed into the Empire tonight, they'll be sporting a beard (gentlemen), Mary Quant haircut (ladies) and smoking a roll-up that might or might not be of the illegal variety.
At which point, you'd be well within your rights to laugh long and hard in their oh-so-unwith-it-but-somehow-down-with-it faces. For any talk of math rock and slide rule melodies and lab coat dynamics (man) is only there to hide a fundamental truth about the Chicago instrumentalists. They're beatniks, the musical equivalent of On The Road jazz that just 'blows, my friend' and the bit in Funny Face where Audrey Hepburn dances to no music in a club dedicated to a philosophy based on empathy because she wants to 'express herself'.
Tortoise aren't post-rock, they're pre-rock. They're feeling their way through touches of jazz, keyboard noises that sound like they're accompanying a Fifties vision of 'the future', and vibes notes that are as golden and lithe as hope springing eternal. And that's vibes as in the xylophone-style instrument rather than good vibrations, although the latter are very much present as well.
It starts with conversation, the chatter of the crowd getting used to nothing at all blaring from the PA, and just when everyone's settled into a comfortable rhythm, BLAAAAAAAMMM, a fuzzed up guitar chord shatters the spell. Far out brother, let the exploration of sound begin. Then layers are slowly built and sounds thrown in like so many spare spanners, as you come to terms with music that has a million details if you want to spot them, but a single momentum if you'd rather surrender to that. Heads nod, beards bob, hips wiggle involuntarily.
Tortoise are at their best when they're going somewhere, when there's a sense of progression, urgent or otherwise. 'The Taut And Tame', from their sublime 'Millions Now Living Will Never Die' album, has its thumb aloft and an itch in its soul, heading out into the wide blue yonder as the players favour a rougher, more fuzzed up approach than usual.
'DJ-ed', another 'Millions' masterpiece sounds like an approaching tropical storm, with a bassline that's all creeping twilight and some time lapse blossom noises that makes you think of Koyaanisqatsi, the impressionist film classic. And 'TNT' is impossible not to dance to, not to love.
When they lose their direction, however, as they do in the second half of the show, we lapse into Jazz Odyssey hell, with the band showing off an array of clever noises and forgetting to throw in a purpose to keep everyone jigging along. This, finally, is where Tortoise turn into post-rock. And, to be frank, it's post-engaging, post-interesting and post-exciting. But, oh man, those moments when they head off into the unknown with a glint in their eye and poetry in their spirit. They're enough to make you want to drop out forever.
