Tortoise, the iconic ensemble that "reset the stage for what might fit within indie rock" (MOJO), releases Touch, the first new album from the groundbreaking group since 2016, on all streaming platforms today via International Anthem and Nonesuch Records, following last month's release on LP, CD, and digital download. You can hear it and get it here. The band has also shared an animated video, by Selina Trepp, for the album track "Rated OG."

Also today, Tortoise will collaborate with the Chicago Philharmonic for the first time in a special concert at The Auditorium in Chicago, where they will perform Tortoise songs new and old with arrangements written by Sean O'Hagan (High Llamas), Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes), Paul Von Mertens (Brian Wilson), and the band's own Jeff Parker.

As noted in a preview of the show by Chicago magazine, “to make their music work with 30 or so members of the Philharmonic, the band naturally needed new arrangements ... ‘Some of the stuff we’re getting sent, there’s new parts entirely,’ Dan Bitney says. ‘It never really occurred to me that they’d be adding melodic elements or these abstract kind of stabs. I’m just in awe of the whole thing.’” John Herndon of the band added: "Other than high school, I’ve never performed with a large orchestra ... I am excited to just be immersed in that sound world.”

With Touch, the Tortoise band members—Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire, and Jeff Parker—harness their collectivist songwriting approach, a slightly anarchistic but resolutely egalitarian process where ideas triumph over ego towards an abstracted muscularity. While there are still excursions into the dusky, elegantly gnarled jazz ambience that flourished on landmark works like Millions Now Living Will Never Die and TNT, Touch is perhaps most remarkable for Tortoise's unapologetic embrace of grand gesture. Aerodynamically re-engineered Krautrock, hand-cranked techno rave-ups, and pointillist desert guitar panoramas are all imbued with Tortoise's now-signature internal logic—equally alluring and confounding, a puzzle to be savored rather than solved.

The stylistic diversity is also a reflection of the band's current operating circumstances: With two members now in Los Angeles, another in Portland, and just two remaining in the band's Chicago hometown, their creative process has shifted dramatically from when they lived together in a loft space in the late 1990s, honing their sound over endless hours of collective experimentation. Recorded between the three cities—Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago—Touch is the result of an intentional effort by these five musicians to reconnect, recenter, and reinvigorate their sound for what is perhaps the group’s most diverse release to date.

A series of special live shows is planned through the end of the year, including the performance with Chicago Philharmonic, a three-night weekend stand at NYC's Bowery Ballroom, and two shows at the Barbican for EFG London Jazz Festival. The band also announce more 2026 West Coast tour dates today, including San Fransisco, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver; as well a run of shows across Australia and Japan.