1998: Tortoise’s third studio album, ‘TNT’, is released. In and out of print over the past decade, Thrill Jockey are happy to finally give everyone what they have been asking for – ‘TNT’ on vinyl again!

Pressed on high quality virgin vinyl, the double LP is packaged in a deluxe old-style tip-on gatefold jacket, fully replicating the original artwork, and includes a digital download coupon for the first time.

Tortoise’s third full-length release, ‘TNT’ was written and recorded during a 10-month interval in 1997. This longer-than-usual writing / production schedule was purposefully undertaken by the group in the hopes of crafting an expansive, diverse, yet thematically coherent offering. ‘TNT’ builds upon the spare, instrumental framework of the group’s first, self-titled album, and the extended edits, melodic adventures, and klangfarben of the subsequent full-length release, ‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’.

Further to this, Tortoise’s interest in the possibilities offered by the remixing of tracks was realized within the actual production of ‘TNT’; individual elements, sections, or sometimes whole compositions mutate within the album’s shifting framework. These techniques were suitably realized thanks in part to the use of non-linear digital recording and editing methods, the first example of such work for the group.

Now available to independent retailers as a clear with black and blue coloured vinyl double LP.

Tortoise are comprised of multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker.

‘TNT’ was recorded, edited, and mixed by John McEntire, mastered by Roger Seibel and features performances from Caitlin Horsmon, Popahna Brandes, Rob Mazurek, Julie Liu and Sara P. Smith.

“‘TNT’ took the ideas of ‘Djed’ further into the creative possibilities of nonlinear editing. It was recorded to hard disk via Pro Tools, a relatively new idea on the music scene when they started working on the album in late 1996 (Stereolab’s ‘Dots and Loops’, engineered by McEntire around the same time, was another early entry for the technology). ‘TNT’ is a record where copy, cut, paste, and undo reign supreme. Individual parts were worked up in rehearsals, recorded in various combinations, and later reconfigured into new pieces of music by McEntire and the band.” – Pitchfork (9.0)