There’s a lot of dirt in the gears: distortion, static and other distressed sounds. That might be illustrative: The band members—Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, McEntire, and Parker, multi-instrumentalists all—have variously noted the album’s difficult, lengthy, sometimes frustrating creation. Logistics made it the first long-distance Tortoise album, one not centered on folks making music together in a room. There are moments you sense that detached process, an airlessness that flattens some details. It rarely lasts long: One instrument or another will make a grand gesture, or get punched up in the mix Lee Perry-style, pushed through a filter and/or into the red. The destructive energy in some of the creative decisions speak to the detachment of the recording process—a shouting over the transom—and it makes for a less comforting, more unstable record.
“Promenade à deux” finally eases into something like a classic Tortoise chill-out space, albeit with a more widescreen approach, uncharacteristically graced by viola and cello. From there, beginning with “A Title Comes,” the LP’s second half finds perfect balance between signal noise and cinematic sweep, with signature vibraphone pulses and swooning guitar progressions rubbing against blissed-out Terry Riley organ tones and motorik chug. The interstitial “Rated OG,” which might easily run double its length without losing steam, hurtles into a splatter groove, tag-teaming “Oganesson,” which maintains the propulsion, locking focus with a spidery bass line that ends with another plunge into gritty discord.
“Night Gang” is the big finale. It opens like an abstracted Shangri-Las ballad, but vocals never come. There are self-consciously anthemic synths and super-sized surf guitar that suggest David Lynch directing Ben-Hur, and the song goes out on a tease of lighters-up rock-god jamming just before the fade. It’s pretty funny, actually, and moving, too. You sense the in-jokes, the teenage pleasures dusted-off and sincerely lensed through distance and accrued wisdom. You feel the miles and styles these guys have traversed over 30-plus years of music making. And while the darkness of the record’s first half doesn’t get resolved, the frame has widened and you see the bigger picture. There’s some comfort in that.
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