Tortoise - "Beacons of Ancestorship"

The first, second, third, and fourth time I listened to Beacons of Ancestorship, I didn't care for it. On the fifth listen, I thought it might be pretty cool, but on the subsequent sixth and seventh inquiry, I was back to square one. Further down the line on this listening excursion, I'm still being faced with Beacons' enigmatic qualities, at times wanting to light myself on fire with frustration, and at others truly digging this wide palate of musical ideas. I'm hoping the latter emotion will eventually win out, but as with most Tortoise albums, the density and sheer girth of forced conceptual headiness requires a truly patient ear to unravel.

What I'm perhaps most torn about is how Beacons seems to inadvertently shift from sounding cheap and synthetic to deep and precisely crafted. Songs like "Northern Something" and "Penumbra" are filler-like in quality and quantity, whereas "The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One" projects back to when quantum mathematical formulas were deemed necessary to explain Tortoise's post-rock trajectories and song vectors. It seems to be equal parts of both strewn throughout, like pop quizzes separating cephalic-shattering exams.

So what to make of all this? Honestly, I don't know, but maybe that's the whole point. Part of the Tortal-allure is the challenge of the music, and here the difficulty is determining when to turn on and when to turn off. Can you keep your guard up during the intervals of mindless cacophony and even more mindless song titling ("Yinxianghechengqi") to preserve your wits for some seriously composed, mind-retracting material? Best of luck, because I've lost count of the number of listens, and still haven't figured it out yet.