It’s been almost ten years since Tortoise released their last record. THE CATASTROPHIST was not one of the Chicago band’s records that aroused great enthusiasm. According to some assessments, the influential post rock band has missed the train of time and is coasting along somewhat inconsequentially.
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Such judgments will probably not apply to TOUCH, the album was inspired by Scottie McNiece, label maker of the hip jazz and progressive forge International Anthem, and it sounds like an album that brings the best and most extraordinary of the label’s releases from the last few years onto the plate. Never call it post-rock! Jeff Parker, Dan Bitney, Douglas McCombs, John Herndon and John McEntire want one thing above all, to be label-free.
A complex rushing stream of sounds and sounds that await discovery
However, this 10-track work, which so readily jumps out of drawers, can hardly be viewed as free from drawers; it cites Spaghetti Western guitar splendor (at the opening in the wild, wild “Vexations”), and it takes the furthest edge yet into the techno playing field (with the participation of glowing synthesizers in “Elka”). In “Works And Days” we listen to jazz cooling down, and “Oganesson”, previously released in reworks by Saul Williams and Makaya McCraven, among others, reveals the patient work on jazz fusion in a very diverse way.
The “Night Gang” is accompanied by a heavy, soaring, anthemic soundtrack. Everything here somehow merges into one another, it is a complex rushing stream of sounds and sounds that are waiting to be discovered. But no matter what you call it: life is better with a new Tortoise album. Touch!
This review first appeared in Musikexpress 11/2025.