Records: Tortoise's TNT

By Dan Wilchins

TNT feels much more laid back than Millions. The songs are slower, the melody lines gentler. Flamenco guitar stylings appear often, and coupled with the sampled sounds of children playing and waves crashing on "the equator," they give the album a decidedly Mediterranean, ambient feel.

Unfortunately, too much of TNT is ambient in the sense of muzak rather than Brian Eno. Tortoise boasts a roster of able soloists, but too often on TNT, they are content to noodle and repeat themselves. "Four-day Interval" begins with a theme played in unison; it starts off sounding like a Tony Williams Lifetime song from the mid-'70s. But soon after comes an aimless stretch of marimba playing, bass drum thumping, and analogue synthesizer gurgling, followed by a lengthy repetition of the theme. "The suspension bridge at iquazu falls," suffers from similar problems.

Tortoise does a good deal of experimentation on TNT. They use synthesizers more than they have before; some songs are almost entirely electronic. They also sample from different genres more extensively than they have in the past. In addition to the Jamaican dub bass lines that have long been a Tortoise mainstay, there are quasi- disco interludes, Spanish guitar work, and fusion segues on "almost always is nearly enough."

When Tortoise is actually experimenting, they are brilliant. But such moments are rare on TNT. The music here is percussive, different, difficult, and everything else you would expect of Tortoise. Unfortunately, it is also boring. (Thrill Jockey Records)

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