Best Record of 2001: Day 56
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a quick look at Tortoise’s Standards LP as it faces off against Perfuse 73’s Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives.
By the end of this week, I’ll officially be in my 50s (okay, 51, but still), and as we go through these records, I keep telling myself to view them through the lens of 26-year-old Kevin. In other words, do they hold up today? Would they have landed with me back then? And the answer is invariably… it depends. Some sound better than ever. Some have been a goddamn delight. Some weren’t my bag then, but are now. For others, it’s vice versa. And so it goes.
Both of today’s records are new to me. I know the name Tortoise, but they’ve always been just outside the periphery of my listening universe. None of my fellow travelers were into them either—at least as far as I know—so I don’t think I would’ve heard them secondhand.
Doing a little reading, I found an interview with two of the band members on Drowned in Sound, where they talked about how they road-tested some of these tracks before they were done (rad!), and how it made “them rock out more. Made ’em get more solid, then we went back and reworked the ideas and maybe re-recorded the songs or whatever.”
Okay, cool. All of that is ticking boxes I want ticked.
Then we get to the reworked part. Maybe it’s post-rock? Math rock? Serious Music People™ would call this “adventurous” or boundary-defying. To my ear, it all just comes across as noodling. Feels like they decided to break (genre) boundaries and try their hand at every genre going. And I mean… okay.
“Eros” just gave me a headache. I’m sure at one point someone sat listening to it, solemnly nodding their head, but it’s just a jumble of bleeps, bloops, and—well, I’m not sure what the other sounds are.
“Six Pack” — we finally see something kinda sorta resembling the outline of a structure, but this scaffolding is brittle, and the risk of the song careening off the side is always right there, which makes it a less enjoyable listen than it should be. Maybe at this point, I’m just gun-shy.
“Eden 2” has got a nice beat and some flow, but all the sonic side quests constantly threaten to overtake it. Are we ever going to get a chance to catch a nice groove and ride the wave, or is this the point?
“Monica” — okay! Now this I can get into.
“Blackjack” sounds like something from a Bond movie—not derogatory. Hot damn! Maybe there’s hope yet!
The record ends with “Speakeasy.” It’s not terrible, but it took too many detours to get here. Standards was a standard-issue indie record from an era full of them. This would’ve easily been lost in the shuffle back in the day, and even repeatedly forcing myself back to 2001, I can’t see myself playing it more than once. Doing it today was plenty.
Back in the day—and I mean back in the day compared to ’01—people used to sell demos out of trunks. Maybe they still do this? Aspiring rappers would hawk their wares. Aspiring DJs would sell what we called “jeep beats,” which were essentially mixtapes of various beats and scratches—both to show what they could do, but more immediately, something for those aspiring rappers to spit their lyrics over. Think a rougher version of Endtroducing.
I have no idea what Prefuse 73 was doing in ’01—this is literally the first time I’m hearing of him or hearing this record—but I can’t get past the idea that this is something of an homage to that era and those artists. It feels like a collage, with bits and pieces from every corner of the game pasted onto the board. To be clear, there are plenty of tangents and noodles here, but whereas they felt distracting on Standards, here they feel like they’re right where they’re supposed to be.
There are some detours on Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives, but mostly it’s solid beats that make it easy to find something to hold on to. “Eve of Destruction” has ambient-adjacent sounds, but they’re brief. Maybe too brief? Am I showing my age here? Doubly so on “7th Message.” It’s meditative, but also a solid groove.
So yeah, messy in spots, sure, but this is the kind of record where when it locks in, it really locks in—and that’s more than enough to keep me coming back.
Bottom Line: Gonna be Perfuse 73 for me…
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my take? Sound off in the comments!
Kevin Sent 