By combining the saxophone with the hang (an acoustic percussive instrument similar to the Caribbean steel pan), Portico Quartet can always be sure of having a unique sound identity. A sense of difference resonates throughout Monument, released on the excellent Mancunian label Gondwana Records just six months after Terrain. Since their formation in 2005, the British group have always occupied a special place in the teeming contemporary English jazz scene. Spotted by Peter Gabriel who signed them to his Real World label, the band caught the limelight with a jazz sound that comes laced with post-rock, worldly, serial and even electronic sounds. The group embraces technological evolution as one of the key drivers of their project. From Radiohead to the ECM label, from E.S.T. to Steve Reich via dubstep, ambient or krautrock, Portico Quartet have always been full of pleasant surprises for the eyes and the ears…
Even though these two 2021 albums were recorded during the same sessions, each has its own, almost opposite idea and form. Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie made Terrain a dark snapshot of the pandemic, before penning an ode to better times on Monument. Without being a dance record, Monument exudes an unprecedented rhythmic energy. Wyllie is quite clear on the subject: “It’s possibly our most direct album to date. It’s melodic, structured and there’s an economy to it that is very efficient. There’s not much searching or wastage within the music itself, it is all finalised ideas, precisely sculpted and presented as a polished artefact.” Designed with far more machines and synths than usual, the album modernises the ideas of the minimalist movement by taking them to a kind of imaginary dancefloor. An addictive seventh album. ©Max Dembo/Qobuz