Tortoise

...ene of 1990s Chicago, Tortoise have upended rock conventions. Instead of tried-and-true punk and rock & roll influences, they favored Krautrock, dub, avant-garde jazz, classical minimalism, ambient music, and British electronica. Unlike the shambling framework of most American indie rock, Tortoise's crisp aesthetic focused on instrumental prowess and group interaction (indeed, all of the group's members had deep ties to Chicago's jazz and experimental rock communities). After their 1993 debut, Tortoise emerged above terra firma with their second album, 1996's Millions Now Living Will Never Die. On its own, the 21-minute opening track "Djed," a sublime pastiche of Krautrock, dub, and cool jazz, would have cemented the band as one of the most innovative acts of the era. Tortoise's signature combination of creative studio engineering and precise yet organic performances earned a wider audience on 1998's TNT and 2001's Standards before they took a looser approach with 2009's Beacons of Ancestorship. Though the members' other projects led to longer gaps between albums, 2016's The Catastrophist and 2025's Touch revealed Tortoise were still eager to challenge expectations. Formed in Chicago in 1990, Tortoise began when Doug McCombs (bass; formerly of Eleventh Dream Day) and John Herndon (drums, keyboards, vibes; formerly with the Poster Children) began experimenting with production techniques. The duo intended to record on their own as well as provide an instant rhythm section for needy bands -- inspired by the reggae duo Sly & Robbie. Next aboard was producer/drummer/vibes player John McEntire and guitarist Bundy K. Brown (both former members of Bastro) plus percussionist Dan Bitney (formerly with the SST hardcore band Tar Babies). The five-piece recorded 7" singles for both David Wm. Sims' Torsion label and Thrill Jockey in 1993, then released their eponymous debut on Thrill Jockey a year later. a year later. Though much of the album traded in restrained indie rock with jazz influences and a debt to prog rock, several tracks took a more slanted course, sounding like a reaction to England's ambient/techno scene filtered through the '70s experimentalism of Can and Faust. Tortoise became an underground classic and spawned the remix album Rhythms, Resolutions and Clusters featuring remixers Jim O'Rourke, Steve Albini, and Brad Wood. The album steadily segued from techno and found-sound environment recordings to feedback ambience and hip-hop, complete with samples of A Tribe Called Quest and Minnie Riperton. In 1995, the group released Gamera, a 12" single on Stereolab's Duophonic label. During the rest of 1995, Tortoise toured with Stereolab in England and headlined a U.S. tour with 5iveStyle and the Sea and Cake. John McEntire also remained busy with production, working on Stereolab's Emperor Tomato Ketchup and eponymous debut LPs from 5iveStyle, Trans Am, and Rome. When Brown left for solo production work and his band projects Slowpoke and Directions in Music, Tortoise added bassist David Pajo (formerly of Slint and also a member of the For Carnation) for January 1996's Millions Now Living Will Never Die. The British weeklies and American music magazines championed the strength of album-opener "Djed" -- which blended a rumbling bassline, scratchy lo-fi ambience, and dub techniques into over ten minutes of music before the sounds of reel-to-reel tape disintegration introduced another passage of calm yet angular indie rock figures. Along with earning rave reviews, the album reached 115 on the U.K. Albums Chart. During the rest of 1995, Tortoise toured with Stereolab in England and headlined a U.S. tour with 5iveStyle and the Sea and Cake. John McEntire also remained busy with production, working on Stereolab's Emperor Tomato Ketchup and eponymous debut LPs from 5iveStyle, Trans Am, and Rome. Instead of a remix album to accompany Millions Now Living Will Never Die, Tortoise optioned tracks out to several techno/experimental contemporaries during 1996. Mo' Wax heroes U.N.K.L.E. recorded a remix of "Djed" on the first of what became a four-volume series, with later interpretations coming from Oval, Jim O'Rourke and Bedouin Ascent, Spring Heel Jack, and Luke Vibert, among others. That year, Tortoise also contributed to the Red Hot Organization's AIDS benefit album Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip. Late in 1996, longtime friend Jeff Parker joined Tortoise as their second guitarist. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Parker's connection to the fertile Chicago free jazz community served as a signpost to the group's new direction: growing instrumental prowess and an emphasis on straight-ahead, occasionally improvisational indie rock. Soon after Parker's arrival, the band started work on their third album. Though Tortoise made heavy use of overdubbing during their sessions, March 1998's TNT relied less on electronics than their previous albums and added strings and brass to the group's instrumentation. Another critically acclaimed work, TNT further raised the band's profile, peaking at 25 on the U.S. Heatseekers Albums Chart and cracking the Top Ten of the U.K. Independent Albums Chart. Tortoise Remixed, which gathered the remixes by U.N.K.L.E. and others, also arrived that year. Shortly after TNT's release, Pajo departed Tortoise to spend time on his Aerial-M project. The band's next project was a 1999 volume of the In the Fishtank series that found them collaborating with Dutch experimental punks The Ex. Tortoise returned in early 2001 with Standards, which continued in the vein of TNT and was leavened by many post-recording tweakings at the band's Soma Studios. The album reached number 10 on the U.S. Independent Albums Chart and was Tortoise's first album to appear on the U.S. 200 Albums Chart. That April, the band curated the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, choosing acts including Television, ESG, Autechre, and Broadcast to perform alongside them in Camber, England. Tortoise curated the festival again in 2004, the same year they released their fifth album, It's All Around You. A more mature incarnation of the sound the band had explored for the past decade, it peaked at 13 on the U.S. Independent Albums Chart. Tortoise's members then concentrated on their raft of side projects, which included Exploding Star Orchestra, Bumps, Fflashlights, and Powerhouse Sound. They issued a pair of releases in 2006: The Brave and the Bold, a collaborative covers album with Bonnie "Prince" Billy that found them reinterpreting songs by Devo, Richard Thompson, and Bruce Springsteen, and A Lazarus Taxon, a box set comprising singles, remixes, videos, and an expanded edition of Rhythms, Resolutions and Clusters. The group reconvened for June 2009's loose, reinvigorated Beacons of Ancestorship, which reached number nine on the U.S. Heatseekers Albums Chart. Tortoise's tour in support of the album took them to the ATP New York festival in 2010, the same year they worked with Beck and Thurston Moore on a cover of Yanni's Live at the Acropolis as part of Beck's Record Club project. The band also composed the score to Lovely Molly, a film by The Blair Witch Project director Eduardo Sánchez that debuted at 2011's Toronto International Film Festival. Tortoise's seventh full-length, The Catastrophist, built on music that they were commissioned to write in 2010 by the City of Chicago to commemorate the area's jazz and improvised music scenes. Featuring vocals from U.S. Maple/Dead Rider's Todd Rittman and Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley, the album arrived in January 2016 and reached number 10 on the U.S. Heatseekers chart. For the next few years, Tortoise's members concentrated on other projects. McCombs returned to Brokeback for 2017's Illinois River Valley Blues and made his solo debut with 2022's VMAK