The casual music fan has things easy. Everything is fresh, new and exciting when you only listen to 20 albums a year. But what about the freaks? People with a 400-album-a-year habit and a hundred music critique sites clogging up their bookmarks menu. Dig too deep, and all you keep hitting is stale earth. That’s why bands that function as a kind of pirate radio station — bands that actually take different styles of music, put them together and transform them into something wholly original rather than simply slapping A with a side of B on a plate and calling it transcendent. That’s why we need bands like Tortoise.
Tortoise came out of the Chicago scene in the early nineties and was one of the first bands, if not the first band, to be saddled with the post-rock label. But while the nebulous term now brings to mind artists wailing away on a long, drawn-out chord while stomping down on 20 different effects pedals, lulling people into a warm coma the world over, for Tortoise it was something different. For the five-piece consisting entirely of multi-instrumentalists, post-rock wasn’t about deconstructing rock music or going beyond it. It was about the very essence of rock ‘n’ roll. In effect, as guitarist Jeff Parker has said before, for him there was no difference between rock and post-rock at all. It was just rock music’s natural evolution. It was natural to take jazz and Tropicalia and Krautrock and electronica and meld them all together. Rock music, which hadn’t done this in a long, long time, was supposed to be about pushing boundaries, not staying in the pocket.
Still, the mere mention of post-rock is enough to make people’s eyes glaze over. It’s long been considered the narcissist of the musical phylogenetic tree. But Tortoise has never been about self-indulgence, and has, for the most part, avoided the cliched prolonged climax seeking of the countless bands it has been lumped in with during its career. The band’s last album, 2009’s Beacons of Ancestorship, was no 75-minute exploration of the mind’s capacity for instrumental boredom. Instead, it was a neatly economical 43-minute triumph for a group in danger of falling victim to its own over-hyped hipster appeal. Mixed in with the usual jazz and minimalist influences were elements of punk rock and dub. And yes, the opening track, High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In, did clock in at around eight minutes. But the album was pure Tortoise; experimentation for the sake of profound yet tastefully understated musical exploration. It was about possibilities for a grander change, not opportunities for self-aggrandizing, pseudo-introspective pap. Tortoise does post-rock right in a time when so many bands get it so completely wrong.
Photo Courtesy of Jim Newberry
■ Tortoise plays on Sunday at The Wall (這牆), B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1). Support comes from We Save Strawberries (草莓救星). Tickets are NT$1,300 in advance, NT$1,500 at the door. Doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 8pm.
A band that has had its relevance debated in recent years will also make an appearance in Taipei on Sunday night. Espoo, Finland-based melodic metal act Children of Bodom, one of only a handful of metal artists to return to Taipei on multiple occasions, are back in town. Lead guitarist/vocalist Alexi Laiho has largely grown up in the eyes of the global metal scene. Not yet out of his teens when C.O.B. launched to global prominence with the 1997 album Something Wild, the lightning-fast, neo-classical inspired musician has become as well-known for his drunken mishaps as he has for his guitar virtuosity over the years. Self-inflicted injuries have befallen the diminutive front man so often he even referenced it in the title of the 2008 Emma Award-winning album, Blooddrunk, the unsubtle amalgamation suggestive of getting so inebriated that blood is shed.
Whether the so-called “Wildchild” has mended his self-abusive ways or not is up for speculation. After getting home from yet another tour in January of this year, the first thing he did was go out on a bender, so presumably he’s got a ways to go before he hits bottom. Or maybe he’s just Finland’s answer to Lemmy, with a seemingly supernatural capacity for hazardous consumption of liquor and feats of intoxicant-addled stupidity. Children of Bodom’s 2011 album, which also took home an Emma Award, is entitled Relentless Reckless Forever, so that could be a pretty clear window into Laiho’s deranged mindset.
Photo Courtesy of Nuclear Blast Records
It seems that this is who Laiho has always wanted to be. The Rock Star. Invincible and untouchable. Above the law and beyond the long reach of consequence. He dropped out of school in his mid-teens to pursue music full time and never looked back. It’s always been full-speed ahead. He’s been institutionalized, hospitalized, venerated, overrated, underestimated and all things between. Children of Bodom’s latest album, 2013’s Halo of Blood, has been widely praised as the band’s best work in years following three lackluster efforts dating all the way back to 2005, nearly a decade past. If Laiho can keep up the pace, he could have a lot of good years ahead of him. He’s only halfway through his thirties and already has a back catalog to his name most artists never accrue. But how long can he be the Wildchild before an accident that doesn’t become just another humorous, self-deprecating back story happens? And how long before the antics of the Wildchild start to overshadow the music entirely? It’s make or break time for the COB crew. The follow-up to Halo of Blood will be a statement of purpose. Just what that purpose is remains to be seen.
■ Children of Bodom play Sunday at The Park, B1, 27, Fuxing S Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市復興南路二段27號B1). Support comes from Diesear (烙印之日). Ticket prices range from NT$1,500 to NT$2,500 for a V.I.P. package. Doors open at 5:30pm and the show begins at 6:30pm.
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