This album-length collection of miscellaneous tracks from the permanently relaxed indie songwriter includes unreleased originals, alternate takes, and covers of Wilco and Dylan.
Expected to continue leading the post-rock brigade into a new fusion with dub and electronics, Tortoise instead turned yet another corner with their third album. Adding guitarist Jeff Parker to cement their musicianship as well as their connections to Chicago's fertile jazz/avant-garde scene, the band returned with a record of post-modern cool jazz, only slightly informed by the dub, Krautrock, and electronics of Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Instead of forcing studio experimentation to become an end to itself, the band mastered the far more difficult lesson of making technology work for the music. - John Bush