Tortoise
It's All Around You

LA RECENSIONE

Would you like to be captivated by an album that distances itself from the pop preconceptions of the new generation addicted to Finley and Tokio Hotel? Enjoy an album of real music that can relax you but also captivate you with its uniqueness? "It’s All Around You" offers you this, an album dated 2004 from one of the most famous and great bands in post rock, a genre that relies on the abstraction of classic rock through cryptic and sepulchral sounds. This album abandons the crypticity of the early records to rely on gentle yet experimental and thoroughly enjoyable sounds.

How can you not be fascinated by the opening title track? Introduced by a heavenly organ suffocated by electronic rhythms reminiscent of Warp, and it’s a miracle when bass and guitar enter the scene, performing in a very sublime manner. Less successful, yet still beautiful, is the following track "The Lithium Stiffs", angelic voices, Aphex Twin-like rhythms, and irresistible piano. Immediately a masterpiece instead is "Crest", with tinkling xylophones for a song that challenges and reaches the impossible, closed by phenomenal orchestration. Xylophones are also part of "Stretch (You’re All Right)", but they are occasional in a dreamy five-minute post-rock paradise. Then, "Unknown", slowed-down rock with truly interesting space sounds, follows the lunar "Dot Eyes", electronic scratches and drum pulsations embrace a spectacular crescendo of drums and electric guitar, which abruptly ends. Chills. "On The Chin", introduced by a music box and continued with the more dreamy Air sounds, those of "Moon Safari", "By Dawn", an IDM style exercise that lasts less than two minutes but is pure autachronous joy, reminiscent of the microsounds of Bjork’s beautiful "Vespertine". Conclusion entrusted by "Five Too Many", tinklings accompanied by Thom Yorke solo-style rhythms, xylophone again, sudden guitar, and a brilliant conclusion of jazz-rock and then "Salt The Skies", rhythmic jazz, with a crazed electric guitar, drumming of electronic convulsions. Pure musical epilepsy.

Excuse the track by track, but it’s impossible not to mention all the pieces that make up an album to absolutely remember. Lights and shadows, almost a sonic sunset. A must-listen.