TORTOISE — Touch
The new album, out now on LP, CD and digital via International Anthem & Nonesuch Records. On tour in Europe this fall.
Touch, the first new album from Tortoise since 2016, is out now via International Anthem and Nonesuch Records.
Listen and order Touch here, and watch the video for “Layered Presence,” directed by Mikel Patrick Avery.
With Touch, the Tortoise bandmembers — 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 spaghetti western fanfares 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.
Order Touch here.
Upcoming Shows
Tortoise return to Europe this fall, from Birmingham on October 31 through Antwerp on November 15.
- Oct 31, 2026 — Birmingham, UK — The Crossing — Get Tickets
- Nov 1, 2026 — Glasgow, UK — Queen Margaret Union — Get Tickets
- Nov 3, 2026 — Dublin, IE — Button Factory — Get Tickets
- Nov 4, 2026 — London, UK — Pitchfork Festival @ Hackney Church — Get Tickets
- Nov 5, 2026 — Utrecht, NL — Le Guess Who — Get Tickets
- Nov 6, 2026 — Barcelona, ES — MIRA Festival — Get Tickets
- Nov 7, 2026 — Valencia, ES — Sala Moon — Get Tickets
- Nov 8, 2026 — Madrid, ES — Sala But — Get Tickets
- Nov 9, 2026 — Reutlingen, DE — franz.K — Get Tickets
- Nov 10, 2026 — Vicenza, IT — Teatro Comunale — Get Tickets
- Nov 12, 2026 — Aarhus, DK — VoxHall — Get Tickets
- Nov 13, 2026 — Weissenhäuser Strand, DE — ROLLING STONE BEACH — Get Tickets
- Nov 14, 2026 — Groningen, NL — Rockit — Get Tickets
- Nov 15, 2026 — Antwerp, BE — Arenberg — Get Tickets
Deluxe Vinyl Package
Touch comes on a 140 gram vinyl LP, inside a heavyweight reverse-board jacket with IARC obi strip and poly-lined printed inner-sleeve. Lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST. North American stock pressed at New Orleans Record Press, all other international stock pressed at Pallas in Germany.
Limited Edition *Axial Seamount* Color Vinyl – $30
Classic Black Vinyl – $27
Also available on
Compact Disc – $15
For a list of record stores carrying the album on October 24th, 2025, see here.
Official Merch Now Available
Visit the new Tortoise official online store for merch. All items shipping worldwide from the US and EU.
Visit shirtkiller.com/tortoise
About
Tortoise is widely considered one of the most influential music groups of the last 40 years, with a wide-reaching impact on the contemporary music scene. Pitchfork says: “Imagine a graphic showing all the bands the five members of Tortoise were in before they came together and then all the bands they went on to play with after. At the top of the funnel you have groups ranging from dreamy psych-rock to earthy post-punk crunch, including Eleventh Dream Day, Bastro, Slint, and the Poster Children; on the ‘post-Tortoise’ end are groups focusing on electro-jazz and twangy instrumental rock like Isotope 217, Chicago Underground, and Brokeback. In this graphic, Tortoise is the choke point, the one project that has elements of all these sounds but is never defined by nor committed to any of them. Instead, Tortoise floats free, a planchette moving over a Ouija board guided by 10 sets of fingers, where everyone watches the arrow float in one direction but no one is quite sure how it gets there or who is doing the pushing.”
The band, which originally formed in Chicago, comprises Jeff Parker, Dan Bitney, Douglas McCombs, John Herndon, and John McEntire.
Initially hailed as pace-setters of the then-emerging, so-called “post-rock” sound, the Chicago Tribune called Tortoise’s sound “mood music that refuses to be shoved into the background, as inviting as it is challenging.” Releasing just seven albums since 1990 — including classics like 1996’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1998’s TNT, and 2001’s Standards —Tortoise has steadily and intuitively evolved across its life, creating genreless music that is as timeless as it is ahead of the curve.
The band’s legacy goes beyond its recorded output, as well. Per the New York Times: “While Tortoise’s albums have experimented with the editing and overdubbing possibilities of the studio, the band thrives performing in real time.” Rolling Stone deems Tortoise “a live marvel,” while Pitchfork further says the band’s performances reveal that “at heart, they’re a supremely fun band, wide open to all sorts of sonic possibilities.”
Contact
Press & Label Inquiries:
Booking Inquiries:
US
Jim Romeo
jim@groundcontroltouring.com
Europe
Berthold Seliger
bs@bseliger.de