Apparently, it was my sister s friend s first exposure as well. There are even less guitars than on the last Radiohead record, and there are not one, but two, vibes players. The liner notes are an incomprehensible mess of characters. I could argue both that it finds cosmos in the chaos and that it is nothing more than a portrait of the chaos. Instruments swirl in and out in an almost random factor.
Songs begin and end within tracks but bleed over track lines.
There are melodies present, but they never last all the way through a song, and I have a hard time remembering them when they have run their course. In the end, I think Tortoise are indeed content to merely paint a portrait of the chaos. I ve never heard a better one, though.