Tortoise
TNT

A mass-consensus and a radical change at every social level is an essential feature of any revolution to be defined as such.

Therefore, regardless of the musical value of the musical-ideological currents that have followed over the years, it is often necessary to distinguish between the coefficient of innovation and the real "social" impact of the phenomenon.

An obligatory premise to introduce the album in question, whose innovations, its own and those of the previous work (the seminal "Millions now living will never die") have not yet been absorbed into the music destined for the mass market.

The so-called post-rock is often accused of being a movement of experimentation that turns in on itself, lost in its own self-satisfaction; it constituted, more than an evolution of rock, a more probable and simple offshoot of it.

We know that the subsequent works of Tortoise will partially give reason to such voices, with progressive declines in tone up to the pointless "All around you", perhaps a signal of "artistic drought".

However, it is appropriate to set aside any sort of digression in the presence of such work, a stand-alone compared to any movement, whose quality and meticulous study of beauty speak for themselves.

It is always about instrumental post-rock with sporadic dips into minimal electronics and glimpses (this time structural, however) of jazz with soft and dreamy hues, but never as with this album have I had the impression that every detail is exclusively aimed at the whole, managing to be both sharp and blurred simultaneously.

Consequently, we do not have dominant personalities that tilt the balance in an easily definable direction, but the indefinite so mathematical yet so natural draws the ineffable contours of music that stands for itself, beyond musical currents and sterile genre attitudes.

It is difficult to encapsulate the album in episodes, because the jazz-rock of the title track, the electronics of "The equator" or the warmth of "I set my face to the hillside" fit so well there, in that perfect sequence, it would be a mistake to remove them.

No passage seems forced or simply "disinterested" and the contemplative distance of the listener is functional to capture every nuance, which often reveals itself in the very first listens but manages not to bore over time; and that's not a small feat.

If in the previous LP post-rock was the end, here it becomes the attained and consolidated means, used to make music and speak through music, the kind that welcomes with open arms the absence of prejudices numbing the senses, the kind that when it ends makes you press play again.