TORTOISE "Standards" CD

■TORTOISE, 4th album released in 2001. First of all, the opening is startling with its intensely noisy distortion sound. While their previous album, TNT (1998), was recorded, improvised, and constructed in a studio using electrically modified parts, the sessions for this album were held after rehearsals and composition. Although the sounds, tones, and rhythms are manipulated, overall processing is kept to a minimum. Not only the opening, but the album as a whole has a hard and aggressive sound, and although it has a punk feel, it also has a line-up of direct and melodic songs, making it a recommended album for beginners to Tortoise. A masterpiece that thrillingly combines analog and digital, live performance and post-production, technology and emotion.

■Recorded at John McEntire's Soma Electronic Music Studios.