Tortoise defuses critics with ‘TNT’

Spencer Patterson

Friday, July 8, 2005 | 8:26 a.m.

Rock criticism is awash with ridiculous genre terminology.

Emo, alt-country, nu-metal, intelligent dance music. Strange, made-up designations, which often confuse as much as they reveal about a particular style of sound.

One of my least favorite such terms arrived in the early-to-mid 1990s: post-rock. Whoever came up with that one should be tied down and forced to listen to Poison for a solid week.

To me, calling an act "post-rock" makes it seem as if they are lying in wait for a sort of rock apocalypse, at which time they will rise and take control of the airwaves with some newfangled, never-before-heard form of music.

Listening to Tortoise, one of the leading bands on the so-called post-rock scene, I get no such impression. The Chicago collective can be adventurous and experimental at times, but mainly, I find its music quite soothing.

Tortoise's best album is generally reported to be 1996's "Millions Now Living Will Never Die," which found the group exploring electronic realms more than it has before or since.

My favorite, though, is 1998's follow-up, "TNT." The disc varies dramatically from its predecessor, sticking primarily to organic tones to create a mellow, yet engrossing, experience.

The music is all instrumental, but it still speaks to me. From the soaring horns on opening track "TNT" to the wailing guitars of album capper "Everglade," the disc is all about layered textures and gradual dynamic changes.

On "TNT," Tortoise blends space-rock and jazz influences, heading off to the cosmos yet still managing to groove. At times, you could even call it new-age music with a soul.

Look at that last graph. Space-rock? New-age? More silly rock terms. In seems there's just no getting around them.

Artist: Tortoise.

Title: "TNT."

Year of release: 1998 (Thrill Jockey Records).

Tracklisting: "TNT," "Swung From the Gutters," "Ten-Day Interval," "I Set My Face to the Hillside," "Equator," "Simple Way to Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work," "Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls," "Four-Day Interval," "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ, and Beethoven There Were Women and Men," "Almost Always is Nearly Enough," "Jetty," "Everglade."