TNT＜Clear With White Hi-Melt Vinyl＞

DOUGLAS MCCOMBS、JOHN HERNDON、DAN BITNEY、JOHN MCENTIRE、DAVID PAJO、JEFF PARKERという錚々たるメンバーから成るシカゴのポストロック/音響派集団TORTOISE。90年代オルタナティヴ・シーンにおいて、ジャズ、エレクトロニカ、ダブ、現代音楽を自在に横断する音楽性で大きな存在感を放ってきました。

本作『TNT』は1997年に10か月をかけて制作され、1998年にリリースされたサード・アルバム。前作『MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE』で確立した編集的アプローチをさらに推し進め、非線形のデジタル録音/編集を導入。ストリングスや管楽器などの新たな音色も積極的に取り入れ、65分にわたって多層的かつ流動的なサウンドスケープを構築しています。

"IN SARAH, MENCKEN, CHRIST, AND BEETHOVEN THERE WERE WOMEN AND MEN"から"JETTY"に至る組曲ではエレクトロニクスとコンピュータ音楽の探求を展開。一方でライヴを意識したリズム・アンサンブルは健在で、ドラム/ベース/ギター/マレット/パーカッションによる有機的な演奏が全編を貫いています。

新たに正式加入したJEFF PARKERの存在も大きく、ジャズ畑の感性を注入することでサウンドに柔軟な広がりを与えています。TORTOISEがポストロックの枠を超えて「音響芸術」としてのアルバム制作に臨んだ金字塔的作品です。

Expected by many to continue leading the post-rock brigade into a new fusion with dub and electronics, Tortoise instead turned yet another corner with their third album, TNT. Adding guitarist Jeff Parker to cement their musicianship as well as their connections to Chicago's fertile jazz/avant-garde scene, the band returned with a record of post-modern cool jazz, only slightly informed by the dub, Krautrock, and electronics of Millions Now Living Will Never Die. It shows from the first few seconds -- a lazy, slightly free drum solo frames a few tentative guitar chords and some teased effects, before the band kicks in with a holds-barred jam that encompasses a tremulous solo from trumpeter Rob Mazurek. With engineer/mixer/drummer John McEntire and company adding only a few post-production frills to the mix -- and those so complementary and subdued that they rarely even sound like effects -- TNT comes off as a surprisingly organic record. The evocative Spanish-style guitar on "I Set My Face to the Hillside" plays over an assortment of playground sounds, while "The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls" deconstructs a classically angular Tortoise groove and re-emerges with an evocative, deeply affecting groove over shimmering vibes and precision guitar lines. There are plenty of nods to post-rock touchstones like Krautrock ("Swing From the Gutters"), dub, and minimalism ("Ten-Day Interval"), but Tortoise hardly sounds like a difficult band here. Instead of forcing studio experimentation to become an end to itself, the band mastered -- with a single, deft statement -- the far more difficult lesson of making technology work for the music. ~ John Bush