★★★★★
In 1996, post-rock hadn't quite coalesced into the form it's generally thought of now. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai and Sigur Rós were still months away from releasing their debut albums, and the term was more associated with the groovy, spacey likes of Pram and Stereolab. Tortoise's second album was clearly post-rock, but it felt different. The influences the Chicago outfit shared with those bands were on show: the motorik beat on 'Djed', or the Steve Reich-like vibraphone throughout...
- www.clashmusic.com
2013-07-22
★★★★★
As opening gambits go, DJed must be up there. A few seconds shy of 21 minutes - making it half the length of this six-track album - it's a collage of weird, wonderful sounds that kicks off this 1996 sophomore record by the pioneering post-rockers from Chicago. At times just a mess of noise, at others more akin to a proper "tune", it's an epic, avant-garde sonic adventure that merges elements of electronica, ambient minimalism, free-form jazz and everything else in between...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
The Thrill Jockey vinyl-only reissue strategy bathes in nostalgia for a period long before this second album's original release in 1996. A solidly spinning LP platter artefact has become somewhat more fashionable now than back then, and this release is part of a sequence of Tortoise reissues scheduled for 2012. This second album was responsible for turning on the majority of Tortoise followers. A sudden classic at the time, Millions... confidently holds onto its significance 16 years later...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23
★★★★★
Chicago is no Seattle. It's no Athens, Omaha or Detroit either. It's too big a city to give birth to the next indie music breakthrough, as tiny Athens was in the mid-'80s, or medium-sized Seattle was in the early '90s, and Omaha and Detroit have been more recently. At the same time, Chicago is forever looked upon as an also-ran to the pulsing hubs of American music: New York and Los Angeles. Chicago is the second city, a stopover point for those traveling between coasts...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
Muso-futurist journalist Simon Reynolds defined the music of Tortoise for them several years ago: they're "post-rock", they're "using rock instruments for non-rock purposes". Now, that's broad. He means bands that conflate the symphonic, the swingin', and the rockin', but you really have to torture that bit of language to deliver a sense of newness based on that definition...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
If post-rock's lure has dimmed since its 90's heyday amidst hordes of identikit troupes whose idea of experimentation is sticking doggedly with the tried and tested quiet/loud dynamics, this box set from the influential originators retains much of the genre's glow...
- www.gigwise.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
15 years after the release of their debut, Tortoise are still flying the flag for post-rock, experimentation with their sixth full-length release, 'Beacons of Ancestorship' - the first new material from the group in five years. It's always been difficult to pin Tortoise down as sounding like a particular group, or even to extract obvious influences...
- www.gigwise.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Respectability's a double-edged sword as it manifests in the experimentalists of yesteryear; Tortoise were last heard unabetted in 2004 honing their much-admired template almost to extinction with It's All Around You, a record that was refined and considered but verged on a kind of cerebral muzak at times...
- thequietus.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
When Tortoise made their mark with a couple of ground-breaking albums, journalists looking for a new catchphrase threw up post-rock, and there's your 15 minutes. The 16th minute is ever so harsh, and though Tortoise has continued its flux experiment, the magic of invention is no longer available. Get over it and enjoy the music at hand I say, for it can be downright exquisite...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
Loading...
