Tortoise? What's That?

Chicago post-rockers Tortoise instrumental music defies easy categorization. Some have cited Tortoise as being one of the prime forces behind the development of post-rock and others have characterised Tortoise's music as being heavily indebted to prog rock. Tortoise was among the first indie bands to incorporate elements of Krautrock, dub, minimalist music, electronica and various jazz styles into their sound, rather than the standard rock and punk that had dominated indie for years.

Tortoise just released their seventh album, The Catastrophist, their first album since 2009.  Although the band are primarily instrumentalists, the new album features a cover of David Essex's 1973 Rock On and a song called Yonder Blue with vocals by Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo.

Here' the hypnotic lead single Gesceap, a composition more typical of Tortoise.

Tortoise will be on tour this spring, but the closest they will come to Atlanta will be a tour de ville swing north of here (Charlottesville, Asheville, Louisville) in March.