Tortoise Announce New Album 'Touch'
Tortoise is officially back with Touch, their first new album since 2016, and their grand return feels both overdue and quietly exhilarating. The Chicago-rooted band, famous for bending genres into elegantly weird jazz-rock hybrids, will release Touch on LP, CD, and digital download on October 24, 2025, through International Anthem and Nonesuch Records, with streaming a little later in November.
As soon as the news dropped, indie corners of the internet cheered; it’s not every day you get a comeback from one of post-rock’s most inventive collectives. Below is an official post shared by intlanthem about the new album'Touch':
https://www.instagram.com/p/DOYeEIFji-y/?
Of course, for fans who’ve spent years playing 1996’s Millions Now Living Will Never Die until the liner notes fell out, this feels less like a surprise and more like the best kind of birthday present. Touch isn’t just a retread of the past, though it’s a sprawling, shape-shifting album recorded across Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago, the result of five musicians chasing new chemistry after living in different cities for years. There’s the same dusky jazz ambiance, but against a backdrop of krautrock drive, hand-made techno, and (surprisingly!) Western-movie fanfares. At its core, it’s Tortoise, but wider, weirder, and maybe hungrier than ever.
Tortoise Announce New Album Pre-Order
Pre-order fever started right out of the gate, because honestly, these are the guys who once reimagined what instrumental music could be. You can already preorder Touch on LP (in an “Axial Seamount” color edition if you’re feeling flashy), classic black vinyl, or CD, with digital downloads available too. If you’re more of a streaming holdout, mark November 11 on the calendar for when Touch arrives on Spotify and everywhere else. (Those of us who’ve spent months refreshing Discogs for out-of-print pressings… maybe now we can finally move on.)
For anyone on the fence, the lead single “Layered Presence” is out now and comes with a music video directed by Mikel Patrick Avery, an off-kilter, tactile, slightly hypnotic video that makes you want to trade in your smartphone for a drum kit in an empty warehouse.
“Oganesson,” which dropped earlier this year, found its way onto the album as well as a skittery, spy-funk dream built in 7/4 that already won over critics and Big Ears festival diehards.
Tortoise Band Members
The five Tortoise members, Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, John McEntire, and Jeff Parker, have built music together since the '90s, toughing it out through late-night loft sessions and cross-country moves. It’s an odd-couple ensemble, really; McEntire’s a production wizard, Bitney and Herndon weave percussion, McCombs supplies bass with a jazz nerd’s precision, and Parker drops in guitar lines that are all mood and muscle.
