Tortoise - Touch

2025

Arguably, the greatest source of intrigue generated by an ensemble getting back together after a span of many years is how the changes undergone by the musicians may change the group dynamic. The answer to that question on the latest from Tortoise is: Kind of a little, kind of a lot. Spread out geographically as well as musically, Jeff Parker, John Herndon, Dan Bitney, and John McEntire have spent four years shaping Touch. 

The uncategorizable mix of post-rock, post-bop, electronic music, ambient tones, and cinematic washes are still there, though how it will be heard is changed by the intervening years, where a not insignificant cross-section of the modern jazz landscape has grown more like Tortoise at the same time Tortoise was sounding less than they once did. There’s an urgency to this music, rife with pulsing tones and insistent melodic jabs. If this were a novel, the narrative would be direct and eschew plot twists. There are moments, like on the bouncing “Axial Seamount” and the wistful “A Title Comes” that present as if a love letter to the ensemble’s younger self.