Listener-supported KSUT delivers NPR News and Music Discovery for the Four Corners, on-air and online, from its studios on Southern Ute lands in Ignacio, Colorado.

KSUT is an independent, non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors and is not a tribally owned station or service.

© 2026 KSUT Public Radio
NPR News and Music Discovery for the Four Corners
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tortoise On World Cafe

Tortoise
Andrew Paynter
/
Courtesy of the artist
Tortoise

It's been more than 20 years since the post-rock instrumental band Tortoise released its first album. Now, the beloved Chicago group has a new album called The Catastrophist, which grew out of a commission the band received from the city of Chicago itself to write and perform material that saluted the city's rich history of improvisational music. The purposefully loose structures Tortoise developed for that project took on a somewhat more defined shape as The Catastrophist.

In this session, hear a performance and an interview with two of Tortoise's five members, Dan Bitney and Doug McCombs.

Copyright 2016 XPN