#jeff-parker

#jeff-parker

Parker had just joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a clearinghouse of adventurous jazz players and advocates for radical Black expression. He was now in two exciting Chicago bands, Tortoise and Isotope 217, interwoven outfits that wordlessly insisted there should be no walls between dub and jazz, rock and electronica.

Tortoise releasing a record with anyone other than Thrill Jockey after a 30-plus-year relationship is a shocker for a group not known for dramatic changes. It's akin to Autechre abandoning Warp! Anyway, the important thing about Tortoise is that their last two albums before the International Anthem/Nonesuch-reared Touch - 2009's Beacons of Ancestorship and 2016's The Catastrophist - have been among their most vital and inventive, an unusual trajectory for a group well into their fourth decade.