Tortoise
Chicago post-rock ’s first family. Prepare to shell out, warns John Mulvey.
Tortoise: John Herndon, David Pajo, Jeff Parker, Doug McCombs, Dan Bitney, John McEntire.
STERN VIZIERS of instrumental post-rock, it’s easy to see Tortoise as a rather cerebral band. Picture them in their shared Chicago loft in the late ’90s, giant portraits of John Coltrane overlooking a scene of intensive, relentless musical virtuosity. For one track on 1998’s TNT, they chose the title In Sarah, Mencken, Christ, And Beethoven There Were Women And Men, a small twist on the name of an epic poem by John Barton Wolgamot; try shouting out for that banger at a gig. A multiple-disc compilation album of rarities, 2006’s A Lazarus Taxon, derived its name from a paleontological term for organisms that disappear off the face of the earth, only to reappear much later down the line.