Chicago's Tortoise enabled the cross-pollination we take for granted today, drawing on dub, post-punk, weird folk, jazz-fusion, progressive rock and dance music to open a Pandora's box of possibilities. We live in the post-Tortoise era. Gamera, an out-of-print 12in from 1995 that opens this three-CD and one-DVD collection of rarities, is so intricate and beautiful, it's almost worth buying the set for. But these visionary innovators have lost their way of late, recording tracks neither tuneful nor especially textured nor hugely rhythmically pleasing, as if conceitedly convinced of their own genius, making this a mixed bag, best avoided by the merely curious.
Thrill Jockey