Portico Quartet: Art In The Age of Automation

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Duncan Bellamy (d, elec)
Anisa Arslanagic (strings)
Francesca Ter-Burg (strings)
Jack Wylie (s, ky)
Milo Fitzpatrick (b)
Keir Vine (Hang drums, ky)

Label:

Gondwana

September/2017

Catalogue Number:

GONDCD018

RecordDate:

2016-2017

Portico Quartet now know what's in a name. Over-thinking the departure of Hang drummer and keyboardist Keir Vine (himself a replacement after Nick Mulvey's swerve into singer-songwriting), their new moniker Portico was accompanied by a stylistic dive into bloodless electronica and the frosty sensitivity of James Blake and alt-J (with singer Joe Newman guesting). However illogically, the name-change made them sound diminished, a much-altered remnant, and at an early gig I attended at least, their audience shrank accordingly. Wiser heads and Vine's return mean Portico can be dismissed as a bad dream. The nexus between analogue and digital music is their metier (with Portico's Living Fields not such an anomaly), and the textures this allows preoccupy them here. The slowly tripping, part-mechanical rhythm of Bellamy's drums on ‘Objects To Place In A Museum’, Geiger-counter buzz of electronics on ‘A Luminous Beam’, 1980s synth-pop of ‘Beyond Dialogue’ and the title-track's rippling Hang chimes and stereo-panning, near-psychedelic finish all explore sonic space and tangibility. The Hang, a 21st century product of Swiss industry which resonates with Somerset Maugham South Seas fantasies, is their contradictory emblem, warming an otherwise morose ambience.

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