Portico Quartet – Terrain

Portico Quartet announce “Terrain”, a three-part suite drawing on American minimalism and ambient music alongside their own rich heritage as they explore new musical vistas. When Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie – the driving force behind Portico Quartet – got together in their East London studio in May 2020 and started work on the music that would become their new album, the world, or most of it, was in the midst of the first lockdown. The unique impact of the events of 2020 became the backdrop to their time composing and recording; causing them to take stock, rethink, and plot a new musical path. Indian novelist Arundhati Roy expressed the sense of grief and rupture from the pandemic as “a portal, a gateway between one world and the next”, and as they created the music that would become “Terrain” they were drawn towards longer, slowly unfolding pieces, which are perhaps the most artistically free and also the most beautiful they have ever made. It is this sense of dialogue, both between the composers, and between tranquillity and a subtly unsettling melancholy, that makes “Terrain” such a powerful statement. One that speaks to both our interior and exterior worlds, to our own personal landscape, to our terrain.

LP / Gondwana

Cat. No. GONDLP042