Tortoise-Mosquito

Torsion Music

1993

I just recently pulled out Tortoise's first album and was reminded of how amazing this band was back in the day.  This is their very first record, released on (if I remember right) Jesus Lizard bassist David Sims' Torsion Music in 1993.  These guys get an unfair shake from a lot of folks these days.  But they deserve, in the words of John Fahey, neither "the credit nor the blame" for the deluge to tepid "post-rock" that followed in their wake.  Fact is, when these first couple of records showed up there was nothing else like it going on.  I mean, there were touchstones for sure- Faust, Liquid Liquid, fIREHOSE, African Head Charge, CAN, etc.- but from the beginning they were able to incorporate a wide range of influences without being beholden to any set style or paradigm.  At this point though, they're still a band finding their voice and, as such, this record, upbeat and almost outright funky, is unlike anything else in their catalog.  

Mosquito

Ativin-Modern Gang Reader

Secretly Canadian

1997

The Ativin on record here is a band that had progressed light years from the debut ep released the previous year.  Whereas that album relied heavily on more pedestrian distortion pedal off/distortion pedal on dynamics, the writing here offers a subtle complexity that takes into account time, space, volume, and timbre.  A nice prelude to their follow up LP German Water- their strongest effort which I highly suggest seeking out, and Modern Gang Reader in fact resurfaces there.  These sorts of bands always worked better in small doses I always thought, and this is a great example of how the single can still be a great format.  A simple but effective package and two songs that serve as a perfect distillation of what it is a band does.

Modern Gang Reader