Where to start with Tortoise
Start with Oganesson (Heba Kadry Remix) — Oganesson 12", 2025. That is the track sitting closest to the centre of all 13 Tortoise tracks in Zubissou Sounds — a listening room of 14,971 tracks placed one at a time by hand, not an algorithm.
This page is not a discography and not a ranking. It describes exactly one thing: the 13 Tortoise tracks that one person put in one room, and where they sit relative to each other. The starting point above is chosen by a rule you can check — of the 13 tracks, it is the one nearest the average position on the four knobs the room runs on, and where two sit equally close the one on a named record wins. Nothing here calls any record better than any other.
The collection leans hard on one record: 6 of the 13 tracks come from Touch alone.
The density knob swings 73 points across these tracks, the widest of the four — it is the axis this artist actually travels along in this room.
Three ways in
The one track, if you only play one
Oganesson (Heba Kadry Remix) — Oganesson 12", 2025. Of the 13 Tortoise tracks here, this one sits closest to the average of all of them across the four knobs the room runs on. It is the least surprising thing in the collection, which is exactly what an entry point should be.
If you want the sparse end
A Survey — Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1996. The lowest density reading of any Tortoise track in the room (4 out of 100). This is as far towards sparse as the collection goes.
If you want the wall end
The Taut and Tame — Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1996. The highest density reading here, at 77 out of 100 — a 73-point swing across the collection towards wall.
Where Tortoise sits in the room
Zubissou Sounds does not have playlists or genres you click. It has knobs. Every track carries a position on each one, set by hand when the track was added, and you find music by setting the room to a state rather than by searching for a name. These are Tortoise's average coordinates and the range they cover.
| Knob | Average | Range | Low → high |
|---|---|---|---|
| mood | 40 | 4–60 | melancholy → euphoric |
| energy | 39 | 5–62 | ambient → driving |
| density | 48 | 4–77 | sparse → wall |
| head · body | 47 | 27–65 | cerebral → groove |
All four run 0–100. They are placed by a person, not derived from audio analysis or from any streaming service's feature data.
What is here, record by record
| Album | Year | Tracks |
|---|---|---|
| Touch | 2025 | 6 |
| Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 | 6 |
| Oganesson 12" | 2025 | 1 |
Every Tortoise track in the room
| Track | Album | Year |
|---|---|---|
| A Survey | Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 |
| Along the Banks of Rivers | Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 |
| Dear Grandma and Grandpa | Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 |
| Djed [excerpt] | Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 |
| Glass Museum | Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 |
| The Taut and Tame | Millions Now Living Will Never Die | 1996 |
| Oganesson (Heba Kadry Remix) | Oganesson 12" | 2025 |
| A Title Comes | Touch | 2025 |
| Axial Seamount | Touch | 2025 |
| Night Gang | Touch | 2025 |
| Promenade à deux | Touch | 2025 |
| Rated OG | Touch | 2025 |
| Vexations | Touch | — |
Near neighbours in this room
These are the artists whose average knob position sits nearest to Tortoise's in this room. It is a coordinate match, not a claim that they sound alike.
- Where to start with Leonard Cohen — singer-songwriter, 12 tracks
- Where to start with Fleetwood Mac — classic rock, 11 tracks
- Where to start with Shakatak — smooth jazz, 10 tracks
What the open databases say
MusicBrainz lists Tortoise as a group, from the United States and formed in 1990. Its contributors tag the artist post-rock, electronica, jazz rock, experimental rock and warp. These are the open database's facts, not mine — you can check them against the MusicBrainz entry.
Questions
How many Tortoise tracks are in Zubissou Sounds?
There are 13, across 3 albums. 12 of them carry a date, running from 1996 to 2025. That is the whole of what this room holds — it is one person's collection, not a discography.
Is this a best-of, or a ranking?
No. Nothing here is ranked and no track is called better than another. The starting point is picked by arithmetic — the track closest to the centre of all the others on four measured axes — and the rule is printed above so you can disagree with it.
Where do the knob numbers come from?
They are set by hand, one track at a time, by the person who added the track. They are not audio analysis and not a Spotify feature. Mood, energy, density and the head/body balance each run 0 to 100. All 13 of these tracks have been read individually — nothing on this page is running on a default.
Can I listen to these here?
Not yet from this page. Zubissou Sounds is in private beta — the room itself plays through Spotify, and 13 of these 13 tracks are matched to a Spotify ID and ready to play the moment you are in. The waitlist form is at the bottom of this page.