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, today via International Anthem and Nonesuch Records on LP, CD, and digital download, with streaming to follow November 11. You can get it here. The band has also shared a video for the new track "A Title Comes" by Nespy5euro, which you can watch here:

“A sense of playful hybridity runs through Touch—from the sci-fi spaghetti western soundscaping of ‘Vexations’ to the pulsating man-machine techno of ‘Elka,'" says the Guardian. Uncut says: "These songs are full to bursting with sounds and ideas, suggesting a kind of wide-eyed maximalism, as though nothing is off limits except silence.” Aquarium Drunkard calls it “a display of perpetually unpredictable, beautiful, and vital music, for which Tortoise remains the standard bearer.” Treble says: “It sounds more than anything like they’re simply having fun playing music together again after a decade, and that feeling is infectious.” And Mojo concludes: "The wait, rewarded."

On November 11, 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 [Chicago] 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 and a three-night weekend stand at NYC's Bowery Ballroom. For details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.