Агутин, Дорн и L`One выступят на фестивале Chess & Jazz woman.ru - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from woman.ru Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
London jazz minimalists spy land ahoy with their exploratory new album
Terrain is a slightly odd choice of name for Portico Quartet’s new album in one respect. Water seems to play a key timbral role on the album, either represented in endless raining droplets from Duncan Bellamy’s ride cymbal, the softer splashes of the quartet’s signature hang handpan, or the increasingly fashionable ‘wobbly’ synth pads that give the impression of downing a few shots on the back of a fishing boat. Surely this is a contradiction to the solidity of the earth, that
Terra from which the record’s title takes its name. My suggestion would be that the ‘terrain’ Portico Quartet speak of is malleable, multi-scalar; the rough surface of train seats holding equal significance to that of the Great Outdoors. It’s worth remembering also that under the firmness of the ground lie unfathomable oceans of liquid, supporting us all; terrain without solidity need not be perilous.
28 May 2021
I have admittedly not heard anything new from the Portico Quartet since their superb sophomore album
Isla. When PopMatters’ own Nathan Stevens warned us all of what happened when the group dropped the ‘Quartet’ from their name and released
Living Fields, I must have assumed it was a permanent change because I just plain forgot about them. With
Terrain, the joke’s on me. Not only did they reinstate the ‘Quartet’ to their name after their brief experiment in electronic music and go back to playing highly percussive minimalist jazz, but they have also taken significant steps in transcending their highly specified subgenre.