Almost alone among bands of the last two decades, Tortoise is a group that resists easy metaphors and analogies, who can be described as sounding like only themselves and no one else. Twenty years after its founding, the band’s signature and singularly inimitable sound—a fluid intersection of dub, dance, jazz, techno, rock, and classical minimalism, with no part overwhelming or dominating the whole—remains an American and international original. Even more unusually, they seem to have arrived at their sound with almost no apprenticeship to speak of; to judge from their early singles and albums alone, they seem to have come into being with their musical identity and DNA fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Further, while the group has spawned countless imitators, heirs, and followers—sincere, flattering, and otherwise—Tortoise remains unique in the world of contemporary music for their boundless intellectual curiosity, their unmistakable compositional voice, and their synthesis of seemingly contradictory sound worlds far from their doorstep.

Tortoise – Prepare Your Coffin

Tortoise – Prepare Your Coffin from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Tour Dates:

May 29  Buffalo, NY             Tralf Music Hall
May 30  Brooklyn, NY            The Bell House
May 31  New York, NY            World Financial Center Winter
Jun 11  Athens, Greece          Synch Festival
Jul 11  Los Angeles, CA         Troubadour
Jul 13  San Francisco, CA       Great American Music Hall
Jul 15  Austin, TX              The Mohawk
Jul 17  Chicago, IL             Pitchfork Music Festival
Jul 19  Washington, DC          Black Cat
Jul 20  Philadelphia, PA        First Unitarian Church
Jul 24  Tokyo, Japan            Fuji Rock Festival
Aug 14  St. Malo, France        La Route Du Rock
Aug 22  Hasselt, Belgium        Pukkelpop