Around a year ago I wrote a post that analysed the year’s activity on Last.fm. For those who don’t know, Last.fm is a website that tracks your music listening habits. It produces lovely graphs and churns out recommendations as well as providing tailored radio stations for you to listen to at your leisure. I adore the site.

This year, instead of looking just at the past year’s statistics, I have decided to look at my entire Last.fm history. A couple of weeks ago, I hit my 100,000th scrobble (instance of listening to a track). It’s a suitably big landmark.

My 100,000th scrobble happened on 7 December, just over four years after my first scrobble on 18 November 2004. By that time I had listened to 730 different artists. Of these, 18 had 1,000 plays or more. 196 artists had over 100 plays.

My top thirty artists chart looked like this:

And my top thirty tracks were:

There are a few problems with this chart. The top track, ‘untitled (live)’ by Boards of Canada, is actually several different tracks from bootlegged gig recordings. I am quite sure that ‘Xmd 5a’ by AFX should not be that high, as one day I logged in and it showed many more plays than there should have been. It’s still a good track though.

John Cage tracks figure highly because I own three different recordings of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. In fact, many of these tracks are high up simply because I own multiple versions, normally because I have the single as well as the album. Shining’s ‘To Be Proud of Crystal Colors is to Live Again’ is actually two different tracks with the same title. All of the Autechre tracks and most of the Jaga Jazzist tracks are here purely on their own steam.

It is obvious that, interesting though they are, Last.fm statistics are far from scientifically rigorous. For one thing, one track counts as one scrobble whether it’s 31 seconds long or 31 minutes long. One website, Last.fm Normaliser, attempts to get round this by weighting your artists by the average length of their tracks. This is also completely unscientific, but it is interesting nonetheless.

This table makes my obsession with Autechre even clearer. Even in the normal Last.fm table they have a huge lead. But by this measure I like Autechre twice as much as any other artist. The biggest climber in the top twenty is Steve Reich, who is number 20 in this table, but number 37 in my original Last.fm chart.

My favourite thing to do with Last.fm data, though, is to analyse it using LastGraph. I did this last year, looking at my Last.fm activity throughout 2007. This time, I am looking at my Last.fm activity as far back as the data goes — March 2005, just a few months after my first scrobble.

The graph is so huge that I can’t include a readable version on this page, but a miniaturised version appears below. Click on it to view it at its original size (Warning: It’s a large file).

I love looking at these graphs. They tell a story about my developing taste in music. But they also, in a way, tell a story about what is happening in my life at a certain point. I can glance at the graph and remember that I had exams during a certain period, or I was working lots in that summer, or whatever. It takes me back. I’m also quite surprised sometimes at which artists appear where on the graph. It appears that my memory was a bit out in a few places.

So there we have it. 100,000 scrobbles; four years of tracking my music listening habits.

So here it is at last, my top ten. As always, you’ll have to press play every 30 seconds on the audio clips.

10. Franz Ferdinand — The Fallen / L. Wells

Okay, so this isn’t an album, but did you want me to call this post “my ten favourite albums and / or singles and / or EPs and / or whatever else of 2006″? What a mouthful. Anyway, I’m usually kind of lukewarm about Franz Ferdinand. The hype that surrounds them is a bit off-putting really, but you have to admit that they make quite a lot of good music.

All singles should be like this. The band called it a “quintuple a-side” (although the CD I own only has four tracks, hmm…). All of the tracks were of a high quality; not the sub-standard b-sides that are often slapped onto a CD single. The most glorious moment is the incredible remix of ‘The Fallen’ by Justice. Brilliant stuff.

What I wrote about it at the time

9. TV on the Radio — Return to Cookie Mountain

Some people have said that they are surprised that I like this album. I don’t know why they should be. There are some fine songs on here, demonstrating that you a good song can be sonically interesting. Opener ‘I Was a Lover’ takes the crown in that regard. Not every song is a winner. There are some quite boring moments, like the collaboration with David Bowie, ‘Province’. Still, the quality of the album overall is still good enough to keep me happy.

8. Steve Reich — Different Trains

This is the CD released by Black Box in 2006. I bought this before I knew of the Phases box set, and I had wanted to hear this for a while so I couldn’t resist really. Luckily enough, I much prefer this performance to the one on Phases. The Duke Quartet’s performance is more passionate than The Kronos Quartet’s rather clinical approach.

This CD also includes ‘Piano Phase’, Steve Reich’s first phase piece that wasn’t for tapes. There is also ‘String Quartet No. 2′ by Marc Mellits, whom I confess to never having heard of before. But it is a very pleasant piece of music indeed. I particularly like the jauntier fun bits in ‘Mara’s Toys’.

7. Matthew Friedberger — Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School

For how long can Matthew Friedberger churn out such fantastic music at such an alarmingly fast rate? Already committed to making at least an album a year with The Fiery Furnaces, Mr Friedberger has moved into making solo albums. Apparently this is because he is scared of forgetting how to make music. I’m not complaining.

The Fiery Furnaces tend to attract mixed reviews, so you should be warned that this is just like The Fiery Furnaces but with their idiosyncrasies amplified still further. It does feel a bit wrong without Eleanor Friedberger though. Mind you, it also reminds me of Eels’ more recent material. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a double album, or all of the mellotrons.

This double album hasn’t attracted as much attention as Bitter Tea. I’m not really sure why that should be, because it is almost as good if you ask me.

6. Jarvis — The Jarvis Cocker Record

Another accomplished musician taking his first steps into the world of the solo career. This album is probably exactly what you would expect from Jarvis in this stage of his career. At first I thought it was quite similar to Pulp’s last album, We Love Life. But over time I’ve spotted bits of older Pulp, and lots of bits that are plain new to Cocker’s sound.

Sonically, it is not all that adventurous. But Jarvis Cocker shouldn’t be, because his strength is in brilliant songwriting. And there is plenty of that here. Although I predict this to be a grower, not every song is as great as you’d hope. But four or five of these songs are irresistibly enjoyable. ‘Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time’ is a fine choice for a first single.

Meanwhile ‘Fat Children’ is a delightfully angry song about society, where fat children take your life because “the police force was elsewhere, putting bullets in some guy’s head for no particular reason”.

5. Squarepusher — Hello Everything

How much better can this man get? Hello Everything was well-positioned to be a damp squib. The expectations following the utterly outstanding Ultravisitor were high. But if anything, Tom Jenkinson has improved.

Maybe the album as a whole isn’t on a par with Ultravisitor. But watching the videos of him performing ‘Hello Meow’ and on the BBC’s The Culture Show, I am convinced that Jenkinson must be one of the best musicians on the planet, full stop. It would be enough if he just did the electronic stuff, but with the bass added in it’s just mind-boggling.

I quite liked the cosmic sound of this album, on tracks like ‘Planetarium’ and ‘Circlewave 2′. The b-sides to the Welcome to Europe single were also top-drawer stuff. How much better can Squarepusher get?

What I wrote about it at the time

4. Team Doyobi — The Kphanapic Fragments

Once again, I am left wondering if I’m the only person in the world who likes Team Doyobi this much. This was definitely the album that I looked forward to the most all year, and it was very frustrating to see the release date being moved back so often. I’m sure it was originally meant to come out in March or April. It was never seen until mid-November.

Still, it was well worth the wait as Team Doyobi took their music another stage further. While the bold 8-bit-style electronics are still there in full force, it is mixed in with a much denser, darker sound. The first two tracks are fairly proggy affairs, lasting fifteen minutes each. These two tracks take up half of the album!

But the Team proves that they haven’t forgotten how to have fun as the best moment comes with ‘Thus Jacked Zarathrusta’. Here is your robot music indeed! What an epic. The end result for the album as a whole is a more mature progression on their familiar sound, but one that isn’t all that alien to what we’re used to from them. A tricky balancing act accomplished. Apparently their next album is already just about finished. I can’t wait to hear what they’ve got in store.

3. Scott Walker — The Drift

I like this album so much because it sounds like Scott Walker has actually put some effort into making this a good album. In a year when so many of my favourite bands have put in so-so efforts, it is so refreshing to hear this.

It’s meant to be difficult to get into. So people keep on saying anyway. But I don’t think his music is much more difficult than, say, Björk’s. Still, it’s hardly a barrel of laughs. At times it is a downright unpleasant listen. It sometimes seems as though he’s written the lyrics to be as dirty-sounding as possible, with his talk of “the pee pee soaked trousers” to take just one example.

The music is just masterful though. It’s so good to hear somebody being genuinely experimental. Why aren’t there more musicians like this?

2. Grizzly Bear — Yellow House

This was the big surprise of the year for me. I expected this to be a so-so album at best. I downloaded ‘On A Neck, On A Spit’ and I was unimpressed at first. A few days later I had a song stuck in my head. It was amazing. But I couldn’t for the life of me work out what the song was. It was one of those moments where I actually began to wonder, “Did I write that myself?” But it turned out, of course, to be ‘On A Neck, On A Spit’. A delightful grower — a beautiful song with a bit of a cheeky streak.

Well that was it. I had to buy the album now. And once again I was slightly disappointed. But once again I was won over by repeat listens. It is impossible not to just sit back and enjoy the music. This album has achieved the rare feat of getting me relaxed on train journeys. It is a basic idea: simple, pleasant songwriting. It’s pulled off masterfully.

The peak of this album is reached with ‘Marla’. It is deceptive. On the surface it sounds like this studio is haunted. But delving deeper, you discover that it’s perhaps the most beautiful and gentle song on the album.

What I wrote about it at the time

1. The Fiery Furnaces — Bitter Tea

It says something about the state of music this year — at least the music I’ve heard this year — that Bitter Tea has topped my list. It is true that when this album was released, I wrote an effusive review that predicted that this would turn out to be my favourite album of the year.

But this does not come close to being The Fiery Furnaces’ best album. My biggest complaint is that it doesn’t really feel like a complete album. It just starts, quite suddenly, with ‘In My Little Thatched Hut’, which feels more like it should have been in the middle of the album.

But what am I doing, criticising such a fine album? I should be glad that The Fiery Furnaces exist at all. They are one of the most unique bands around at the moment. How could you fail to fall in love with their clattering pianos and antique synthesisers? Well, quite easily actually — but not if you’re me. The point is that fans of The Fiery Furnaces will find everything they want here.

What I said about it at the time

Some of this year’s best releases were actually re-releases, compilations or collections of some kind or another. If I had decided to include them in my main list, most of them would have made my top ten of the year. But there’s only so far you can stretch the concept of a ‘2006 release’. So I’ve separated them out in their own little list. They are in no particular order, other than alphabetical, which is quite a particular order, but not a meaningful one.

NB. Where I have included audio clips, you have to press play every thirty seconds.

Battles — EP C/B EP

A collection of the band’s previous releases, EP C, B EP and the single Tras / Fantasy, this is the revelation of the year for me. I haven’t been as excited by the noises guitars can make in years. This is the album I hoped Tortoise would make following Standards. Battles are definitely a band to keep an eye on. Let’s hope they don’t mess it up with their first proper album. The promised autumn release date has come and gone, though the band’s MySpace blog says that a single will be out in February with an album coming in early spring. I can’t wait!

What I said about it at the time

Brian Eno + David Byrne — My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

This classic album was digitally remastered and re-released for its 25^th anniversary. As an extra special treat, seven tracks that didn’t make the original were included (although ‘Qu’ran’ was removed). Two tracks were even available to download for people to remix under a Creative Commons license. So an old favourite given a very 21^st century twist. The best thing about this album is the fact that — despite its heavy reliance on technology — it simply doesn’t sound twenty-five years old. Just incredible.

Broadcast — The Future Crayon

A fine collection of Broadcast’s B-sides here. Some of these are brilliant tracks. The fact that ‘Illumination’ was not included on an album was criminal. That is rectified here. ‘Unchanging Window / Chord Simple’ is also not to be missed! All-in-all, this is an essential album, even if (like me) you already had many of the tracks on previous EPs. And if you’ve always wondered what the fuss about Broadcast was, but never got round to investigating — well, there couldn’t be a better place to start.

Field Music — Write your own history

Another collection of B-sides here. Field Music only have the one album out, and they’re already getting the retrospectives out there. Ker-ching! I thought this album was a bit bland at first. Unlike Broadcast’s album, you could really tell that these songs were B-sides. Often there is a little something lacking. Having said that, this album, presented in chronological order, has grown on me a lot. A lot of it is dangerously close to ripping off The Beatles. But if you can get beyond that, this is a charming and sometimes surprising collection, just like their album. If you liked their first album then you should get this. If not, hold back.

Gescom — MiniDisc

“Groundbreaking” is a word that’s spread around rather liberally. But Gescom’s MiniDisc possibly deserves the tag. It was said to be — by none other than Sony’s MD — the world’s first ever MiniDisc-only release, way back in 1998. It seems to have been an attempt both to take advantage of and thwart the various pros and cons of the MiniDisc format. In particular, MiniDisc’s seamless shuffling was utilised, allowing listeners to shuffle and loop the MiniDisc’s eighty-eight short tracks to their heart’s content — without having to endure those painful gaps you get with CD players.

Of course, the MiniDisc format is pretty much obsolete now, so MiniDisc has been re-released on CD. Not that it matters too much, as iTunes 7 can do the whole gapless shuffle thing anyway. As for the music itself, people’s general reaction is usually mixed. But I think there are a lot of really great tracks on this. Gescom probably works best as a way for Autechre to let their hair down, and they certainly do that here (I know one person who particularly loves the fact that one of the tracks is called ‘Helix Shatterproof’). I particularly like ‘Polarized Beam Splitter’, ‘Pricks’ and ‘Le Shark’.

John Cage — Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Maro Ajemian)

This is a re-release of the first recording, made over fifty years ago, of John Cage’s incredible Sonatas and Interludes. It is interesting, but nothing more. Infact, some parts of it are painful to listen to — not because of John Cage’s wizardry, but because the recording is so poor. Could they not have remastered it or something? Save yourself a few quid and just buy the Naxos version.

Steve Reich — Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective

In celebration of the hugely influential composer’s seventieth birthday, Nonesuch have put together a huge five CD box set of Steve Reich music. And some of his best work is all here — ‘Music for 18 Musicians’, ‘Different Trains’, ‘New York Couterpoint’, ‘Electric Counterpoint’, ‘Triple Quartet’, ‘Drumming’. All jaw-droppingly amazing. There are a few mediocre pieces though. How many times can he get away with re-hashing ‘Music for 18 Musicians’?

The set also misses out the literally pathfinding ‘It’s Gonna Rain’. Still, you can’t complain. I got my hands on this for eighteen quid, which is not much more than what I paid for ‘Music for 18 Musicians’ alone, and the same as what I originally paid for ‘Drumming’. The great value is the best thing about this set. And there couldn’t be a better place to start your Steve Reich collection.

Tortoise — A Lazarus Taxon

Tortoise certainly have plenty of great tracks hidden away in the dustier corners of their catalogue, and it was about time some of these tracks got a good airing. There are many highlights such as ‘Gamera’, ‘A Grape Dope’ and ‘Waihopai’. There are also a few fairly boring tracks. This album is unusual in that I have actually become less fond of it over time. Still, I am grateful that this set of three CDs and one DVD was released. What a treat for Tortoise fans. Let’s hope that their next proper album isn’t as duff as It’s All Around You!

What I said about it at the time

My top ten proper albums of new music of the year will appear next week!

(NB. You might notice that in the current batch of album reviews I’m writing at the moment, the albums are getting progressively older. Yup, I’m just writing a bunch of reviews that I didn’t have time / energy to write at the time.)

At last, a CD of these concerts has been released. Warp Works is a collaboration between Warp Records and the London Sinfonietta designed to explore the links between the electronic music of the likes of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher and contemporary classical music, “in the belief that the different kinds of music shed light on each other.”

A lot is made of this supposed association between the two genres. A lot of the associations drawn are pretty tenuous. The claim that Richard D. James is the modern equivalent of Mozart seems particularly fanciful. But this CD successfully highlights the similarities between IDM and avant-garde twentieth century music without going too far up the bum.

The CD begins with a pair of prepared piano pieces by Aphex Twin. Although they are untitled on this CD, spotters will notice that these are performances of ‘Jynweythek’ and ‘Hy A Scullyas Lyf A Dhagrow’ from DrukQs. For these tracks, Richard D. James took inspiration from John Cage’s invention of the prepared piano. A piano is specially set up with chains, screws and whatever else the musician can think of. Each note makes an exotic sound. Playing the prepared piano is like having an exotic percussion ensemble.

Also included are specially arranged versions of classic tracks by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. Results are mixed. The tracks chosen for reinterpretation were surely not chosen for their accessibility or ease of translation. Indeed, the translation is positively uneasy. Maybe that was the point. Still, it is fascinating to hear ‘Afx237 V.7′ being played by an orchestra.

Undoubtedly the most successful reinterpretation is that of ‘Polygon Window’. It sounds like the London Sinfonietta had real fun playing this rip-roarer, and the audience clearly loved it as well.

Not all of these performances made it to the CD though. Notably absent is ‘Pete Standing Alone’, originally by Boards of Canada. Surely a recording must exist, because I’m sure I heard this on Radio 3 when they broadcast one of the concerts. Also missing is ‘Port Rhombus’, originally by Squarepusher.

With the reconfigurations of classic Warp tracks now making up just four of the tracks, the rest of the double CD is left for performances of pieces by avant-garde composers. This is where the listener is rewarded the most.

I had never heard of Conlon Nancarrow before, but I am now interested to learn more about his music. Nancarrow, just like today’s masters of electronic music, was interested in music that humans couldn’t possibly play. He used player pianos to achieve this. But ‘Study no. 7′ is presented here in an version for human players. It’s a complex but fun listen. My brother said that it sounded like cartoon music. I can see his point. It’s whimsical in that way. I would love to hear a piano-only version of this.

More familiar names appear on this CD aswell. Steve Reich’s ‘Violin Phase’ is a captivating listen. I would have liked more information on how this was performed. Only one player is listed, so I’m guessing the rest was done with electronics or tapes. Whatever, it’s a real treat to the ears.

Five of John Cage’s Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano also make an appearance. Sonatas & Interludes is a favourite of mine, and it’s interesting to hear just how different these performances sound to the cheapo Naxos CD that I own. I guess it is all part of John Cage’s interest aleatoric music, that two performances of the same piece could sound so different. I could end up seeking out more versions of Sonatas & Interludes for this reason.

Meanwhile, Karlheinz Stockhausen is a famous composer that I’ve never had the inclination to investigate. At first, I found the piece included here, ‘Spiral’m a bore. But I have found repeated listens rewarding. This will spur me on to investigate further.

All-in-all, Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters is a very interesting album. It avoided being merely a gimmicky attempt to shoehorn electronic and classical music together. Instead, composers who did genuinely share ideas and approaches with today’s popular electronic music makers were deliberately chosen. The comparison between Mozart and Aphex is rubbish. But the similarities between Nancarrow and Squarepusher are fascinating.

There might be noticeable absences in the tracklisting, but you really cannot complain about what you are given here. This is a top selection of brilliantly performed avant-garde music. It will almost certainly encourage me to dip my toe in this arena further than just Reich and Cage.

• Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters website
• 2004 review of Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters
• London Sinfonietta
• Warp Records

It shouldn’t really be the case that an album of old tracks that never made it onto proper albums is one of the most hotly anticipated albums of the year. But it is very difficult not to get excited about Tortoise’s music, particularly when most of it comes from the band’s most fertile period.

A Lazarus Taxon is a mammoth compendium of rarities from one of the most revered bands of the past fifteen years. Three CDs are filled to the brim, and a bonus DVD is thrown in for good measure. And it costs little more than a normal album. This is craziness!

The first thing you notice about A Lazarus Taxon, though, is the bleakness of the packaging: black and white photographs of car crashes taken by Arnold Odermatt. The photographs are brilliant, but apart from that I have to wonder why Tortoise decided to use these as the artwork for a box set that almost sums up their career.

In their review of this album, Pitchfork described the album as having “tombstone vibe”:

…in many ways they remain emblematically tied to the mid- to late-1990s, a time when indie rock remixes were a real mind blower and everyone was scrimping for their own marimba.

It is unfortunately true that Tortoise’s heyday has probably been and gone. Although my personal favourite Tortoise album is the relatively recent Standards from 2001, there are few people who would say that their last proper album, It’s All Around You, is their best. And if the startlingly bland album of cover versions made with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, The Brave and The Bold, is a sign of things to come, it is difficult to get excited about new Tortoise material. Not as excited as you would get about old Tortoise material anyway.

So along comes A Lazarus Taxon to remind us what all the fuss was about. And make no mistake — that fuss was justified. Hearing Tortoise’s music was one of the major reasons why I started getting interested in more experimental music about five years ago.

‘Experimental’ is a term that is used far too liberally when no actual experimentation takes place, but Tortoise surely deserve the tag. They are often credited with inventing a genre — post-rock, a kind of krautrock updated for the 1990s where indie-rock, electronic music, Steve Reich-style minimalism and jazz all met with ease. This is a band that was so unconventional that the first appearance of a (not bass) guitar was a big step — pretty weird for a rock band. Tortoise turned the vibraphone into a rock and roll instrument, man!

At their peak, Tortoise were able to defy your expectations, turning their music inside-out at ease, making the listener rip up his expectations over and over again — and not just for the sake of it. Tortoise were one of the few bands that were able to push the boundaries and experiment without coming close to disappearing up their back chute.

Can you imagine any other bands being able to create an epic like ‘Djed’? Lasting twenty-one minutes, the track begins as a quaint melody played on the bass guitar which becomes a driving mid-tempo foot-tapping quasi-jam. The party is interrputed by the most evil-sounding keyboard you’ll ever hear, which in turn becomes a mind-bending Steve Reich-influenced marimba / vibraphone showdown. The hypnotic percussion is interrupted by a ‘tape accident’ which eventually leads to the relaxed, ambienty conclusion. Despite the vast range of styles and moods explored in the track, it is cohesive — every single move makes sense. I really struggle to think of any other bands that could even dream of creating something like this.

Despite the high bar that Tortoise have set on their most well-known material, A Lazarus Taxon does not sound like just a bunch of sub-standard B-sides and obscurities thrown together. Almost everything on this album is every bit as strong as Tortoise’s regular album tracks. It is a real testament to the quality of the band that even Tortoise offal is so good.

Perhaps the only real disappointment about this album is that despite the length — almost three hours — a quick glance at Tortoise’s discography confirms that this comes nowhere close to tying up all those loose ends. Perhaps this is a simple case of choosing quality over quantity, but the quality of this album has only made me more eager to finally learn how to use Soulseek so that I can track down those obscure, forgotten remixes.

So what about that quality? The first two discs of the set are made up of remixes, Japanese bonus tracks and miscellaneous other tracks from out-of-print EPs. The album kicks off with ‘Gamera’, which appears to be one of Tortoise’s most famous tracks despite the fact that it is considered a ‘rarity’. The track is immediately familiar, as it is a reworking of ‘His Second Story Island’ from Tortoise’s eponymous debut album.

Other highlights include ‘Restless Waters’ (a chilled out reworking of ‘Dear Grandma and Grandpa’), ‘Blue Station’ (the beautiful Japanese bonus track for the Standards album) and the amusing ‘Waihopai’ (from the ‘Gently Cupping the Chin of the Ape’ tour EP). Autechre’s two remixes of ‘Ten Day Interval’ are also real standouts. You couldn’t dream of having two better acts working together, and both of them near the top of their game aswell.

For me, the album’s low point comes in the form of ‘Elmerson, Lincoln and Palmeri’ and ‘Deltitnu’, the inconsequential Japanese bonus tracks for It’s All Around You. Nobukazu Takemura’s ten minute-long remix of ‘TNT’ could have done with being half its length aswell.

The third disc is basically a reissue of Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters, an album of remixes from Tortoise’s debut album — but with the inclusion of ‘Cornpone Brunch Watt Remix’ which had to be left off the original after the DAT master was damaged in the post.

Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters is perhaps the most sought-after part of A Lazarus Taxon, although it is a bit of a disappointment to me. Maybe ten years ago it was revolutionary, but today it just sounds a bit rambling. There are some pleasent moments (some nice fuzzy ambient efforts) and it was worth the effort to include ‘Cornpone Brunch Watt Remix’, but for the most part RR&C doesn’t do much for me.

The DVD, where there was so much potential, is also a bit of a let down. The videos, apart from ‘Seneca’ and ‘Salt the Skies’, are poor and have dated badly.

Much of the live material is also of low quality. The band is absolutely fine, but the majority of the live footage — taken from a 1996 concert in Toronto — looks like it has been filmed on whatever was one step above a camcorder ten years ago. It certainly looks as though it’s been shot by amateurs, and the sound is badly out of synch with the pictures — very off-putting, especially when you’re watching the percussionists. It is like watching something on YouTube, not a DVD. I guess if that’s all there is then it’s obviously better than nothing, but it’s still a bit of a let down.

I was also looking forward to seeing ‘Seneca’ live, but that turned out to be Tortoise miming (pretending to play toy instruments) to an audience of bemused children on a television programme called Chic-A-Go-Go.

A better haul of videos can be found on YouTube, and I’ve collected some of them below the fold…

Despite the slightly more disappointing aspects, though, A Lazarus Taxon is a very special collection of tracks. Apart from including more tracks, it is difficult to imagine how this album could be better. A lot of gems have been plucked from obscurity, which is something to be grateful for. If you’re even slightly interested in Tortoise, you really should buy it. Three CDs and a DVD of excellent material, and it costs little more than a normal album.

• Preview the album from Bleep (you have to press play every 30 seconds):
  
• Information on A Lazarus Taxon at Thrill Jockey
• Tortoise website
• Thrill Jockey website
• Tortoise on Wikipedia
• Boomkat review of A Lazarus Taxon

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