Certainly, in tangible terms, it is not important. You cannot eat music, you cannot drink or breathe music. Save for a very few, music does not pay the rent. The answer I accept is that art is a reflection, an extension, of what is. The moment the art is completed, it becomes a bubble of unalterable history-perhaps the only kind of history that cannot be rewritten.
Important music exists right now, and important figures exist.
And that music, those players, exist in Chicago, perhaps in greater quantity than any other city in the United States. And don't forget unofficial band member Casey Rice, Tortoise's traveling sound engineer. The band's self-titled release in 1994 explored the possibilities of multicultural music outside of rock. Tortoise was inevitable. And the band was there to reflect those trends.