It's All Around You (Vinyl): Tortoise: Amazon.ca: Music

1. It's All Around You

2. The Lithium Stiffs

3. Crest

4. Stretch (You Are All Right)

5. Dot/Eyes

6. On the Chin

7. By Dawn

8. Five Too Many

9. Salt the Skies

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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars profound post-rock, Mar 8 2005

By

Alan Ranta (Tiny Mix Tapes) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Its All Around You (Audio CD)

Some pretty profound post-rock from Thrill Jockey's own Tortoise which features some of the most beautiful and poignant art in recent memory. The front cover is an awe inspiring sunset dying over a cascading waterfall and rapids yet overlooking this scene is a yellow helicopter perched next to a luminescent city while the back features a blurred rainforest beneath an overcast sky but blocking most of the sky is a huge projection screen with a better looking skyline beaming out of it. While the liner notes tell a story of life dissatisfaction and miscertainty in the 21st century and the songs are rawly titled, the Tortoise movement isn't exactly taking the route their name would suggest. Instead of going slow and steady, they're heading straight for the main vein. Musically, they try to match the grandiose beauty of their imagery and succeed quite handsomely at it. Bits of the Flaming Lips appear in "Crest," occasional world music and Dark Side Of The Moon sounds appear leaving the mood fairly chilled yet urgent while the inventive guitar effects and production brings me flashes of the unrealized possibilities of Radiohead. Although It's All Around You never reaches the sonic peaks of anything Mogwai have done, the contemplative vibe helps let the obvious anti-advancement juxtapositions set in. This is one to think about, think during, and, well, get!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Good for relaxation..., May 21 2004

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EtherealCereal (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Its All Around You (Audio CD)

Tortoise could be best described as a modern-day Can, blending jazzy sensibilities with sampled noise to create an effect. Perhaps my opinion will change after I hear some of their other releases, but it's just a good CD to listen to while you're out driving in the country on a sunny summer day.

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5.0 out of 5 stars One of Tortoise's best, May 7 2004

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TheQuietCritic "c7" (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Its All Around You (Audio CD)

I was looking on this site for Tortoise CD's with the vague notion of running across a new one. Well, I did, and I resolved to get it. During that, though, I read lots of reviews expressing dissapointment, feeling that this CD was mereley a retread of the group's previous work. I decided to buy it anyway, expecting to like it - and I did! In fact, I fell in love with "It's All Around You". This is like a statement of purpose for the group - sure, it has elements of what they've done before, but it unifies all of these with a desire to explore new things. Their signature sound - vibes, spaghetti-western guitar, dub-influenced electronics - is still present, but that add new twists, like the use of wordless vocals on the breezy "The Lithium Stiffs", the lofty, cinematic epic "Crest" (which is on a grand scale never produced by Tortoise before), the unsettling atmospherics of "Dot/Eyes", which has fast and frenetic drumming underneath a churning soundscape, or the closer "Salt the Skies." This song starts off like a lot of their other songs, with moody vibes, but shifts into a hard 6/8 workout that sounds distinctly prog-rock inspired and ends in a blast of furious guitar feedback and synthesizer noise. I've never heard that kind of intensity from the group before.
In conclusion, I'm very happy with the CD. After only owning it for a few days and having listened to it two and a half times, it's one of my favorites. Those who found it disappointing are entitled to their own opinions, of course, but they might want to give this one another listen or two. I've already found that it reveals more to me each time I hear it. Anyone who hasn't picked it up yet, give it a try. Music of this quality is rare and special, and it definitely deserves to be heard and treasured.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars familiar, mellower, tighter, but still killer
just saw these guys at ny's bowery ballroom and hearing them live it's easy to figure out what's different about these new songs compared to their older stuff. Read more

Published on April 22 2004 by wordtron

3.0 out of 5 stars a resounding OK
Well, despite these mixed reviews I decided to buy it anyway based on a recent article about them in the Boston Globe. Read more

Published on April 21 2004 by Christopher C. Ruth