| · Two self-limiting approaches to musical innovation.
Overheard in restaurant: American tourist to waitress: That's an interesting accent, where are you from? W: South America. AT: Louisiana?
Tortoise fans often remind me of that tourist. Yes, the band (and the mid-’90s Chicago post-rock scene in general) achieved what, for the previous decade, had seemed impossible – broadening the range of American popular music instead of narrowing it, but it failed to tackle American pop's fundamental solipsism.
Indeed, the whole post-rock project sometimes seems like a vast musical inoculation against un-American activities – expose listeners to suitably attenuated foreign concepts, so they won't feel the need to investigate these other worlds for themselves. In stark contrast to the American post-punk generation (Tuxedomoon, Pere Ubu, Talking Heads, The Residents, etc.), the interest post-rock has generated about other musical forms never seems to reach beyond national boundaries – either backwards, to their African, European and Asian roots, or forwards, to what has been contributed to them since the 1960s by those outside the U.S.
This philosophical objection aside, it has to be admitted that Tortoise are quite good at what they do: it's hard to record an instrumental work that holds up to repeated and sober listening without introducing the complexities of jazz or classical music, but they manage.
It's All Around You is lighter than its predecessors, a little jazzier and more laid-back than expected, and with relatively short tracks. I can't imagine this making even a fan's best-of list, but neither will it drive the converts to apostasy. Anyhow, as far as creating a new American musical synthesis is concerned, I prefer Chicago’s L'Altra.
Electronica, of course, has its own methodological problems, but from opposite causes: the modernist rejection of all traditions forces most electronic artists to work in vitro, with the musical equivalent of cell cultures rather than with more complex organisms. This in turn leads to an obsession with compositional process rather than the things normally considered musical content (melody, rhythm, etc.).
Fennesz is, nominally, a guitarist, but his music is really about what happens to the sound of a guitar when everything that is specific to the guitar is removed from it (and a little raw noise added).
This is an interesting enough question for at least three minutes, after which (as with most basic research) those who do not work in the field will want to see some practical applications. Even though Venice is more musical than some previous efforts, listeners will still have to wait 30 minutes for a clear answer, as David Sylvian makes his appearance on "Transit," a quite lovely song about leaving Europe.
On its own, it doesn't quite justify the purchase price of the CD, but it does prove that this line of inquiry isn't a dead end.
TORTOISE 3/5
FENNESZ 3/5
TIMOTHY HECK
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