Tortoise release new album on DSPs

TORTOISE RELEASES NEW ALBUM TOUCH ON ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS PERFORMING TONIGHT WITH THE CHICAGO PHILHARMONIC AT THE AUDITORIUM + MORE 2026 TOUR DATES ACROSS WESTERN US, CANADA, AUSTRALIA & JAPAN ANNOUNCED WATCH THE VIDEO FOR "RATED OG"

Photo by Yusuke Nagata PRAISE FOR TORTOISE & TOUCH “Body music for head people.” Pitchfork “A sleeker version of its distinctive sound...an appealing entry point for the uninitiated.” The Wall Street Journal “Intriguingly unfamiliar…another step onto new turf for the band.” Chicago Reader “For Touch, they’ve regrouped for another subtle advance in their evolution.” SPIN “Touch is a display of perpetually unpredictable, beautiful, and vital music, for which Tortoise remains the standard bearer.” Aquarium Drunkard “It sounds more than anything like they’re simply having fun playing music together again after a decade, and that feeling is infectious.” Treble “There’s a careful sequencing to the record that one can only appreciate listening to it in its entirety. Let it take you places.” Glide Magazine “A surprisingly coherent album, demonstrating the band’s strengths of agile melodic sensibility, nuanced performances, and immersive production.” Dusted “With formlessness, malleability and elasticity as touchstones, there has never been a simple tagline to suit their winning endeavors.” Jazz Times “They continue to avoid definition…flexing if anything and creating ever new pathways for sonic and musical exploration.” Monolith Cocktail “All of Touch reflects the curiosity that has driven Tortoise since the beginning — and still drives them all these years later.” AllMusic “Another riveting set of their influential, adventurous, shape-shifting instrumental sound that’s a heady amalgam of post-rock, jazz, electronic, Krautrock, dub, and psychedelic flavors.” KEXP “Thirty years in, Tortoise are still searching, still listening, still following the sound wherever it leads.” Northern Transmissions “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.’” The Guardian “To listen closely is to uncover minute surprises, which, with patience, expand in depth and scope: what if the anodyne black lacquered walnut table top harbours intricate patterns, cryptic siguls, a djinn? Such figurative treasures abound on Touch.” The Wire "The wait, rewarded" MOJO "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.” UNCUT

Today, Tortoise — the iconic ensemble that "reset the stage for what might fit within indie rock" (MOJO) — release Touch, the first new album from the groundbreaking group since 2016, on all streaming platforms via International Anthem and Nonesuch Records (following last month's release on LP, CD, and digital download). The band also shares an animated video, by Selina Trepp, for focus track "Rated OG." Listen to & watch "Rated OG" here and listen to Touch here. 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 [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. (Read more about Tortoise, their ground-breaking sound "informed by everything from jungle to Krautrock and musique concréte," and the creation of Touch in a feature that ran September 19 over at The Guardian.) 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. Touch is out now, buy/stream it here. Touch cover art TRACKLIST Vexations Layered Presence Works and Days Elka Promenade à deux Axial Seamount A Title Comes Rated OG Oganesson Night Gang CREDITS All music written and performed by Tortoise Tortoise is Dan Bitney John Herndon Douglas McCombs John McEntire Jeff Parker Viola on “Promenade à deux” - Marta Sofia Honer Cello on “Promenade à deux” - Skip VonKuske Field Recordings on “Works and Days” - Tucker Martine Recorded at Flora Recording and Playback, Portland OR; 64 Sound, Los Angeles CA; Electrical Audio, Chicago IL Mixed at Soma Electronic Music Studios, Gladstone OR Recorded and Mixed by John McEntire Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles CA Scorpion Photography - Heather Cantrell Scorpion Sculpture - Martin McEntire Collage Image - Paw Grabowski Layout and Design - Jeremiah Chiu TOUR DATES   Chicago IL - Tuesday November 11th - The Auditorium w/ Chicago Philharmonic - tickets Lexington KY - Wednesday November 12th - Singleton Center for the Arts - tickets New York NY - Friday November 14th - Bowery Ballroom - SOLD OUT New York NY - Saturday November 15th - Bowery Ballroom - SOLD OUT New York NY - Sunday November 16th - Bowery Ballroom - tickets London UK - Saturday November 22nd - Barbican - 1st show SOLD OUT, matinee show added Bristol UK - Sunday November 23rd - The Prospect Building - tickets Leeds UK - Monday November 24th - The Irish Centre - tickets Helsinki FI - Tuesday January 20th - Tavastia - tickets Stockholm SE - Wednesday January 21st - Fasching - tickets Karlsruhe DE - Thursday January 22nd - Tollhaus - tickets Lille FR - Friday January 23rd - Aeronef - tickets Brussels BE - Saturday January 24th - Brussels Jazz Festival - tickets Perugia IT - Sunday January 25th - Teatro del Pavone - SOLD OUT Frankfurt DE - Monday January 26th - Zoom - tickets Köln DE - Tuesday January 27th - Kantine - tickets Paris FR - Wednesday January 28th - Le Trabendo - tickets Berlin DE - Thursday January 29th - Großer Sendesaal des RBB - tickets Dresden DE - Friday January 30th - Beatpol - tickets San Francisco CA - Friday February 27th - Great American Music Hall - tickets San Francisco CA - Saturday February 28th - Great American Music Hall - tickets Portland OR - Tuesday March 3rd - The Aladdin Theater - tickets Portland OR - Wednesday March 4th - The Aladdin Theater - tickets Seattle WA - Thursday March 5th - Neptune Theater - tickets Vancouver BC - Friday March 6th - The Pearl - tickets Hamburg DE - Thursday April 9th - Kampnagel - tickets Den Haag NL - Friday April 10th - Rewire Festival - tickets Brugge BE - Saturday April 11th - Cactus Club - tickets München DE - Sunday April 12th - Technikum - tickets Salzburg AT - Monday April 13th - jazz:it - tickets Graz AT - Tuesday April 14th - Orpheum - tickets St. Gallen CH - Wednesday April 15th - Palace - tickets Fribourg CH - Thursday April 16th - Fri-Son - tickets Braga PT - Sunday April 19th - Theatro Circo - tickets Lisboa PT - Monday April 20th - Culturgest - tickets Sydney AU - Wednesday May 27th - Oxford Art Factory - tickets Adelaide AU - Friday May 29th - Lion Arts Factory - tickets Melbourne AU - Saturday May 30th - The Corner Hotel - tickets Brisbane AU - Sunday May 31st - Crowbar - tickets Osaka JP - Tuesday June 2nd - Club Quattro - tickets Nagoya JP - Wednesday June 3rd - Club Quattro - tickets Tokyo JP - Thursday June 4th - Zepp Shinjuku - tickets Stay connected with Tortoise: Website | Instagram | Facebook Stay connected with International Anthem: 23 Profile | Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube