Thrill Jockey
2006
A Lazarus Taxon
About This Album
Four discs of dispatches from what the New York Times dubbed "the friendlier end of the avant-garde," the three-CD/one-DVD set A Lazarus Taxon is an embarrassment of riches for fans, either of Tortoise specifically or post-rock in general. In the Chicago of 1993, two rhythm-section members deciding to hire themselves out as the indie version of Sly & Robbie had to be considered utter foolishness. But to reflect on ten years of Tortoise is to see the group not as the odd American instrumental group of the post-punk era not influenced by surf or hardcore, but as the logical meeting point of two of the city's prime musical forays: indie rock and avant-garde jazz. Early on, Krautrock and dub appeared to be the two bodies of musical knowledge the group drew on most often; "Gamera," a 12-minute epic from an early EP on Stereolab's Duophonic label, nails a looser, more sincere version of the near-human robotics of Can and Neu!. And from the beginning, John McEntire had begun cementing Tortoise's ties to mid-'90s electronica with his productions, a canny synthesis of labcoat electronics and spacious dub (to say nothing of the group's dabbling, on remix EPs, with enthusiasts such as Oval, Autechre, Luke Vibert, and Nobukazu Takemura).
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10)

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Disc 3 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5 and 6)

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Disc 4

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