Portico Quartet with a new album
This Friday one of our favorite British jazz bands releases their new album. "Monument" (Gondwana Records 2021). The seventh studio album of the Portico Quartet continues in the tradition of the typical hypnotic and cinematic style with pieces in which acoustic instruments meet electronics, some might say even with a club sound.
The Portico Quartet have been a favorite of contemporary music connoisseurs for more than a decade and are themselves the inspiration behind a number of British bands formed later. Somewhere between ambience and jazz. In fact, today and now. Music that will appeal to both fans of trip-hop and jazz lovers.
Thus, the typical northern melancholic and minimalist sound is present in their latest project, which adds more interesting pieces to listen to the long list of the Portico Quartet’s tunes.
And in this case, the music is provoked by the current situation, but unlike other, pessimistic projects, here the emphasis is on the better side of things. Not coincidentally, most of the plays are in a club, dance format, with a positive color.
The musicians themselves define the project as the most direct and easy to understand, which leaves no barriers to listening and does not hinder. An interesting detail is the fact that this is the second album recorded and released within a year - both on sides of the same material. And as far as the first project "Terrain" is rather gloomy and in dark colors, a cheerful, rhythmic mood prevails here.
Defined for years as the "Radiohead" of jazz, London musicians surprise every time, and another blurring of boundaries between genres and the creation of a new, hybrid sound in their latest album only proves this.
Today we listen to three songs from "Monument", and the whole album is now available on digital platforms.
November 2021
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