A Lazarus Taxon - Tortoise

Great for those who are already Tortoise fans.

You get maximum bang for your buck with this 4 disc set, which includes a DVD. As a longtime fan, it was great to hear unreleased tracks and see the band perform live on the DVD. Although the remixes are interesting, they are not exactly the high point, and I find myself skipping the 'remixes' of some of my favorite songs. But there are those gems that you will not want to pass up. If this is to be your first Tortoise CD, you're probably better off with TNT, Standards, or The Brave And the Bold (if you require vocals).

Very Nice!

I bought this a few months ago and have listened to it many times since then, so I think my opinion is pretty "cooled off" or objective. But I guess that doesn't matter anyways, because I still think just as highly of it as when I first popped it in. Basically, if you are a Tortoise fan, this is a no-brainer (3 CDs! A DVD! Startlingly good price!). It gives you a really broad look at their "earlier" sound, which put me off when I first listened to some of their older stuff at 16, but as my taste developed, my appreciation grew to the point where I actually like this style more than their newest stuff(like Standards, It's All Around You). Some of the tracks are definately more experimental, but you just have to appreciate them for what they are. Of the tracks of that variety, I especially like "Whitewater" and "Cobwebbed." They are kind of melodic and ambient...you could compare them to some Aphex Twin....but they have their own "cool" to it. The remixes are also great. Nobukazu Takemura's remix of TNT is really sweet...the way he manipulates the droning windchimes at the end of it to give the sound such depth and space evokes an epic and withdrawn mood, where you just kind of melt away. I think of some ancient Japanese ritual when I hear it, but that's just me. I won't even begin to describe the unreal energy of the opener, "Gamera." And then there is the DVD. Some of the music videos are kind of weak in my opinion, but others are fantastic, and another is kind of funny and bizarre. It's rad to see them play Gamera live, when it was a new song in the mid-90s. All in all, this is a great collection. I recently had the chance to see them at the Troubador in LA, which further solidified them in my mind as a remarkable band. I wouldn't miss out on this one.

collected labors of love...

Tortoise's expansive 2006 box set A Lazarus Taxon collects various rarities and remixes over the course of 3 CD's and 1 DVD. A nicely priced and packaged collection makes Taxon an absolute necessity for fans of Tortoise that want a definitive assortment of important off album things to hear. The fact that this is not a "best of" retrospect of Tortoise's highlights from the wealth of material on their excellent proper albums may catch some off guard. This is due mainly to the surprising surplus of remix and extra material this band has collected over the years, all of which combines to produce very interesting music. That being said, A Lazarus Taxon (taken all at once) can be a very taxing listening session. A listener has to let the music soak in deeply to appreciate these songs, which offer a priceless education to Tortoise's approach to music but can be a little self indulgent at times. As the treasures of this set reveal themselves (which includes a reinterpretation of Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater", a pleasant surprise), the less awe-inspiring songs can be put into the context of exercises that strengthened the experimental and ambitious reach of one of popular music's greatest bodies of work. All of these songs collected (and sequenced as well as they are) makes this a Tortoise set to buy, but the patience required to appreciate this fully, makes this a less effective starting point than their highlighted albums for casual comers.

(the included DVD is excellent, containing videos (more like visual art collages) for songs like "Seneca" and "A Glass Museum" as well as a selection of live performances)

Open Sauce music

This has to be the best bargain since I found a Harry Partch record for 50 cents in a public library sale. The first CD alone in "A Lazarus Taxon" is worth the cover price. In the liner notes, Alan Licht quotes Brian Eno's "Unfinished" essay: "It used to be the case that a record was expected to contain the definitive and perhaps only version of a song, and that the job of the band and the producer was to create this "ideal" object." This collection does a great job of dispelling that old notion forever, as some of the tracks are so much developed from the originals that they resemble a house built around 300 year old foundations. To hear how "Gamera" evolved out of "His Second Story Island" is intriguing--maybe it should be the subject of a documentary in itself. This is now my favorite Tortoise CD; I thought "Millions Now Living" would never be bettered, but this one makes this band's music more like the living, open source language it should be. The production is so good that I decided to buy better earphones, and better speakers. (Maybe it wasn't so much of a bargain, after all.)

A great deal

The videos on the DVD are great. Some of the live stuff is pretty good, particularly the recording of "salt the skies" and the 40+ minute set. The CD's may include a little too much material, but there is plenty of good work to find on these 3-discs. Recommended.