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Here are the album reviews I wrote for the March-April issue of EL Magazine, which was distributed in Tokyo Feb. 25.

The Catastrophist
-Tortoise (Thrill Jockey/P-Vine)
Songs For Our Mothers
-Fat White Family (Without Consent/Hostess)
It’s become a thing to label any musical style you can’t describe easily as being postrock, a situation that, in and of itself, goes a long way toward explaining how the term “rock” doesn’t make much sense any more unless preceded by a qualifying adjective or prefix. Chicago’s Tortoise has always been the default standard bearer for the genre if only because they’ve never rejected it. More to the point, their heady mix of prog and ambient refutes the visceral pleasures associated with “rock music” while mostly retaining rock’s instrumental and rhythmic touchstones. On their first album in 7 years, the group seems stumped for a way forward and so moves slightly backwards—anti-prog, as it were, and it’s not just the lead-footed version of David Essex’s 1973 off-center hit single “Rock On” that makes this case. Though Tortoise has always relied on the kindness of studio engineers to make their point, they never shorted the listener on chops, but The Catastrophist is notably lean on guitar or keyboard showcases. It’s an album of layered compositions, ideas that sound as if they were formulated while fiddling with knobs or patching together orphan fragments of abandoned songs. One exception is “Shake Hands With Danger,” which is built around a Bolero-like hard rock guitar pattern and propelled by metallic synth sounds that mimic those of a steel drum. It’s the closest thing on the album to what might be termed the Tortoise sound: lockstep instrumental activity that builds to something monumental without making your heart leap. The Catastrophist is too tasteful by half, an attitude that refutes the “rock” label even more. One would hate to see what would happen if they ever met Mogwai in a dark alley. “Tasteful” is the last word you’d use to describe the UK band Fat White Family. Obsessed with drugs, sex, and death, the band plays in an enervated style that recalls the narcotic thrum of Suicide or mid-period solo Tom Verlaine. And while the group pointedly doesn’t display much craft, they do stretch the boundaries of the bailiwick in ways that Tortoise might appreciate. Though “Satisfied” is little more than a two-chord rant pushed to the edge of discombobulation, it shapeshifts in interesting ways, as if the energy expended to drive it were producing more energy, like a hybrid gasoline engine. Some of the songs are abstract to the point of perversion: “Duce” is like somebody’s joke reply to Krautrock, six minutes of sludgy, beatless grunts and muffled choruses whose appeal is completely dynamic. Even when they attempt a conventional pop song, it either has to be slightly out-of-key (“Lebensraum”) or stripped of all of its pleasure signifiers except melody (“Hits Hits Hits”). It’s impossible to determine if this sort of rock is progressive or regressive. Tortoise moved back to get out of a rut. Fat White Family see no point in trying to budge out of theirs. Continue reading →