Art in the Age of Automation

by Portico Quartet

supported by

adam neale immense! loving the throbbing bass on luminous beam. But all very enjoyable😊 Thanks

tryphena rose This album takes my breath away. What an absolute work of art. Favorite track: Objects to Place in a Tomb.

t0hil The album overall is brilliant, but I can not stop listening to the first track 'Endless'. The whole album has a very positive and hopeful like sound for me. In some way it makes me feel optimistic. The different layers of instruments really work well together. Definitely worth a buy. Favorite track: Endless.

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£7.99 GBP or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

Includes unlimited streaming of Art in the Age of Automation via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 1 day

Purchasable with gift card

£11.99 GBP or more
T-Shirt
T-Shirt/Apparel
Sold Out
Limited Edition Transparent Blue & Green Double 12" Vinyl (350 only — shipping Feb 26th 2021)
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited Edition Transparent Blue & Green Double 12" Vinyl (350 only — shipping Feb 26th 2021)

Includes unlimited streaming of Art in the Age of Automation via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Sold Out
12” Double Black Vinyl
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Vinyl tracklisting:

Side 1

Endless

Objects To Place In A Tomb

RGB

Side 2

Art in the Age of Automation

S/2000S5

A Luminous Beam

Side 3

Beyond Dialogue

Rushing

Side 4

Current History

Mercury Eyes

Lines Glow

Includes unlimited streaming of Art in the Age of Automation via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ... more

Sold Out

1.	Endless 04:25	buy track
2.	Objects to Place in a Tomb 05:27	buy track
3.	Rushing 06:19	buy track
4.	Art in the Age of Automation 04:55	buy track
5.	S/20005S 00:37	buy track
6.	A Luminous Beam 06:02	buy track
7.	Beyond Dialogue 06:42	buy track
8.	RGB 04:32	buy track
9.	Current History 06:07	buy track
10.	Mercury Eyes 01:36	buy track
11.	Lines Glow 03:49	buy track

about

“Portico Quartet stake claims to territory occupied by Radiohead, Cinematic Orchestra and Efterklang”. The Guardian *****

Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group created their own singular, cinematic sound over the course of three studio albums, from their 2007 breakthrough ‘Knee-Deep in the North Sea’, and 2010 John Leckie produced ‘Isla’, to the self titled record ‘Portico Quartet’ in 2012. Now rebooted as Portico Quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group are set to release their fourth studio album Art In The Age Of Automation this August on Manchester’s forward thinking indy jazz and electronica label Gondwana Records. It’s an eagerly anticipated return, with the band teasing both a return to their mesmeric signature sound and fresh new sonic departures in their new music. So much so that their four-night run at Archspace E8 (June 22-25) sold out in less than an hour as fans from around the world scrambled for tickets to hear the return of Portico Quartet.

Recorded at Fish Factory Studios in London at the beginning of the year and mixed at Vox studios, Berlin, Art In The Age Of Automation finds the band building on the sound world they first explored with their eponymous 2012 release Portico Quartet, mixing the cinematic minimalism, that first made their name, with electronic and ambient textures alongside a welcome return for Jack’s ethereal saxophone and Duncan’s unique mixture of live and electronic drums as well of course as the band’s signature sound, the chiming other worldy tones of the hang drum. It’s hard music to define, as Jack acknowledges. “Our sound falls between many genres, jazz, electronic music even minimalism in places, but naturally it’s an amalgamation of everything we’ve listened to”. And as you would expect from a band that have evolved with each recording, this is no barren retread of the past, instead it represents another step forward sonically and musically in the band’s ongoing evolution, as Jack explains. “We’ve really gone into detail with the sounds and production, building dense layers and textures but retaining a live, organic feel to it. We wanted to use acoustic instruments but find ways in which they could interact with more modern production techniques and technologies to create something that was identifiably us but sounded fresh and exciting, futuristic even.” Its an ethos that also informs the album’s title and the distinctive artwork by Duncan Bellamy (under his Veils Project identity) that adorns the album’s cover “The artwork came about when I started to explore the idea of scanning moving images. The resulting image is exactly that - a film playing on a tablet whilst the scan is in action. So the image is something created by the scanner itself, and in this way it establishes a relationship with the title of the album”. And it’s the mix between the human and the electronic that makes the music on AITAOA so fresh and exciting as Portico Quartet one again evolve their music into the future.

The album opens with insistent, catchy Endless, which references the classic Portico Quartet sound, but expands outwards into a hypnotic, blissful collage of strings, hangs, electronics, saxophones and Bellamy’s unique drumming. It’s a sound that permeates the whole record, feeling both familiarly Portico Quartet, but transformed into something bold and new, sounding somehow bigger than ever but even more detailed. Elsewhere Rushing draws on the bands love of minimalist music, a repeated piano motif merges with a contorted vocal sample that twists its way through juxtaposed spaces to reach an uplifting resolve. Meanwhile the title track offers a moment of down-tempo respite: the hang drum is joined by a full horns and string section, culminating in a orchestral outro where cellos and violins blend with saxophones and hang drum to form a densely layered blanket of sound. The sound of strings are prevalent on much of the record, and as Jack explains they add an extra layer of humanity to the music “It’s exciting working with a string section and to hear the ideas you sketch on a computer being played on acoustic instruments, then being able to direct them in a way in which is just not possible on a computer, it brings a real emotional depth and nuance to the record”. On A Luminous Beam an infectious drum grove drives the piece while synths, flutes and strings are layered with the saxophone floating freely over the top. Beyond Dialogue is classic Portico Quartet, exploiting the ethereal, otherworldly timbre of the hang drums and Jack’s saxophone to create a hypnotic track that references minimalism and ambient music to create something beautiful and new. Current History has nods towards more electronic and urban music as drum machines underpin a collage of hang drums and saxophones. The album finishes on the aptly tilted Lines Glow, the saxophone weaving its melody over an organ and string section culminating in an epic, euphoric moment of release. It’s a fittingly uplifting way to end an album that announces the return of one of the UK’s most singular, and influential bands, one that a decade from their founding are still pushing the boundaries of their music into the future and still sound like nothing you ever heard before.

credits

released August 25, 2017

Produced by Portico Quartet

Mixed by Portico Quartet & Greg Freeman, assisted by Beau Blaise

Mastered by Norman Nitzsche, CALYX Mastering, Berlin, May 2017

Recorded at Fish Factory Studios, London, December 2016 and Jan 2017

Mixed at Vox-Ton Studios, Berlin and Mokik Studio, Berlin , February 2017

All songs written by Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie

All instruments played by Portico Quartet except strings on 1, 2, 4, 6 & 11 performed by Francesca Ter-Burg and Anisa Arslanagic and additional bass on tracks 2 and 7 by Tom Herbert

Artwork by Duncan Bellamy for Veilprojects.com

℗ & © Gondwana Records 2017
www.gondwanarecords.com

license

about

Portico Quartet London, UK

Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group have created their own singular, cinematic sound. Now rebooted as a quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group release their powerful new album Art In The Age Of Automation on August 25th. ... more

porticoquartet.com

shows

Jul 23

Sad Ermitazh

Moscow, Russian Federation
Apr 20

Royal

Baden, Switzerland
Apr 21

Fri-Son

Fribourg, Switzerland
Apr 22

Junkyard

Dortmund, Germany
Apr 24

Gretchen

Berlin, Germany

contact / help

Contact Portico Quartet

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Portico Quartet, you may also like:

Shadow Work
by Mammal Hands

supported by 273 fans who also own “Art in the Age of Automation”

Very rarely do I loose myself in music as much as I do whilst listening to Mammal Hands. Shadow Work keeps that numbness inducing formula going, it's a mandatory listen. p01n7
go to album
Floa
by Mammal Hands

supported by 202 fans who also own “Art in the Age of Automation”

Seems like Gondwana Records is the spot for awesome jazz bands - really beautiful played and sweet harmonies and melodies. Floating and rich rhythms. Really diggin' it! Think anything reminds me of Dave Brubeck 'Take 5' StrangeFlow
go to album
v2.0 (Deluxe Edition)
by GoGo Penguin

supported by 194 fans who also own “Art in the Age of Automation”

Gogo Penguin possède le pouvoir de transcender le drame et l'allégresse, la tristesse et l'action, et surtout l'intériorité et le désir de créer. Chapeau! J'adore! Ma pièce préférée est Hopopono. Kafka963
go to album
Circle
by Phil France

featured on Bandcamp Radio Aug 28, 2018
go to album
Mr. Scruff Vs. Phil France: Joy of Brass Remixes
by Phil France

featured on Bandcamp Radio Sep 12, 2017
go to album
Tides
by Sunda Arc

Flowing yet quirky soundscapes that sound alien and human at the same time from this Norwich duo. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 6, 2020
go to album
Salute to the Sun
by Matthew Halsall

supported by 179 fans who also own “Art in the Age of Automation”

Matthew Halsall continues to create some of the most life-affirming warm-hearted spiritual jazz of this age. Hallelujah. Salute to the Sun. Charlie Moonbeam
go to album

Bandcamp Daily your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Gravesend talks their new LP plus new power metal from Crystal Viper and Warrior Path

listen now