Next month, the Japanese toymaker Takara, purveyor of the electronic dog translator Bow-Lingual and the artificial songbirds Breezy Singers, will market The Dream Workshop, or "Yumemi Kobo." The device looks like a cheap viewscreen attached to a baby monitor or shower radio. For \xA514,800, users will (theoretically) be able to create and control their dreams. After the sleeper inserts and ogles an image associated with the desired dream, the bedside contraption emits odors, soothing music, and voice recordings during deep REM sleep to steer the brain through the proper nocturnal narrative.
Having received a prototype of the toy for an article in Cold Sweat, the magazine of nightmares and nightmare culture, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and review The Dream Workshop and fifth Tortoise album, It's All Around You, together. I followed the instructions, drank a bottle of wine, inserted the smooth atmospheric rambling of Tortoise into the sound drives, and went to bed. In my dream, I threw a stone which ricocheted off the head of a Blue Jay, and into the soft breast plate of an American Goldfinch. (One should not use the Breezy Singers songbird simulators with The Dream Workshop.) On the second try, I scanned the fantastic artwork of It's All Around You into the Workshop's monitor and stared intently into the image.
Looking at the cover, I hoped to take a dip in the waterfall, cross the bridge by the rainbow, or wander down into the L.A. grid that glows like bioluminescent deep sea creatures. Oliver Wasow's surreal, technicolor images of social decay, natural awe, and disaster begged to be experienced in a state of lucid dreaming. In fact, even Tortoise themselves seem so overwhelmed by the majesty of the images that these 10 songs sound more influenced by the digitally enhanced landscapes than some collective subconscious muse. Clearly, the seasoned Chicago ambient jamband hopes to whisk listeners through these beautiful, unreal vistas. Unfortunately, they just end up emulating the hi-glossed cardboard the scenes are printed on.
As I lay in bed, the album's opening title track gracefully lifted off with John McEntire's skittering helicopter-blade percussion and Doug McCombs' lightly turbulent bass. Jeff Parker, Tortoise's most significant member, pointed to bushes and dawn-illuminated mist with his languid, soloing guitar, setting the mood for "The Lithium Stiffs". Here, Kelly Hogan's vocals-- little more than Calgon ahh's processed through a keyboard-- perfectly emulated the state of relaxed awe. It's the most emotional piece of music Tortoise have yet created, working the numbing psychotropia of the title against the joyous exaltations of Hogan's vertiginous sighs. The bass deepened dramatically, mimicking the throb of an eardrum pulse cupped against a pillow. But much as Hogan's vocals beckoned and hinted at audio bliss, they sadly dissipated, leaving the brain little to focus on but percussion, chimes and vibraphone, like your amplified heartbeat, or a dripping showerhead in the dead black night of your home.
"Stretch (You Are All Right)" naggingly fought The Dream Workshop for my attention in such a manner. Here, after a promising start, Tortoise stubbornly began to adhere to their tested formula of studio-perfect skittering and vibraphone. (Is there a more monotonous sounding instrument than vibraphones? Even at their best they sound like florid doorbells.) Finally, my brain gave in fully to slumber out of bored frustration. It's All Around You, too, settled into REM sleep at that point. Even the band's busy percussion on "Dot/Eyes", electronic glitch on "By Dawn", and, uh, more skittering percussion and glitch and vibraphone on "Unknown" and "Five Too Many" seemed as instinctual and unnoticeable as fluttering eyelids, letting the subconscious spend more valuable time in dreams or the decayed island city depicted inside of the digipak. The titles alone struck me as profoundly insightful. "By Dawn"? If I was lucky. "Five Too Many?" Indeed.
Finally, by the concluding "Salt the Skies", Tortoise and The Dream Workshop synched up with effect, taking me into the rusty, charred landscape of the inset photograph. Clouds gathered. John McEntire quickened his drum hammering. Oil lines exploded in flames. Jeff Parker let feedback spill from his guitar. And as the final chime ebbed with the darkness, I awoke. The beginning of a dream, and its climax, always stick most to memory. Tortoise, too, lure you in with nifty production tricks and winding melodies at the start of the album, and build to closing climaxes, just as they've done in the past on "TNT", "Seneca", and "Speakeasy." It's the middling middles that have always bogged their albums.
More frustrating, however, is that, after the scrappy Standards, where Parker spiked the mix with sparks and grime, Tortoise have pressed their music back into Scandinavian furniture. Cold Ikea percussion frames hold downy white duvets of keyboards, the music sterile and functional. Looks lovely in the storefront window, but isn't quite comfortable for heavy petting or watching baseball. Like Japanese toys-- The Dream Workshop, and the Furby and Tamagochi before it-- Tortoise obviously spend hours in the lab honing the science, but the finished product comes with a one-time novelty factor. The most insipid reviews of instrumental music inevitably refer to the music as "soundtracks to the best film never made!" Sadly, Tortoise have been outdone by the still photographs accompanying their music.
