Tortoise.

Tortoise formed in Chicago in 1990 around bassist Doug McCombs and drummer John Herndon, who soon brought in John McEntire and Bundy K. Brown — both formerly of Bastro and Gastr del Sol — plus percussionist Dan Bitney. The rotating, multi-instrumentalist lineup became the band's defining trait: nearly everyone plays nearly everything.

Across Tortoise (1994), Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996) and TNT (1998), the band folded dub, minimalism, jazz, krautrock and electronics into something that had no ready name — critics reached for 'post-rock', and Tortoise have been consistently credited as one of the prime forces behind that movement's rise in the 1990s.

TNT in particular drew wide critical acclaim for its postmodern range, blending live playing with production techniques borrowed from electronic music — a hybrid approach that still sounds ahead of its moment. The band kept working steadily through Standards (2001), It's All Around You (2004), Beacons of Ancestorship (2009) and The Catastrophist (2016).

In 2025, Tortoise released Touch on International Anthem, their first album in nearly a decade — proof that a band built on patience and craft was never really finished.