This Friday, Luke Abbott and Portico member Jack Wyllie release their self-titled collaborative EP, a three-track collection that Abbott is calling ‘an ambient record’. You can listen to it in full above.
The tracks have all been put together from longer improvised recording sessions that all took place in one take. The release marks Abbott’s first work since his soundtrack for British film The Goob earlier this year and his second album, Wysing Forest, which was released last year. The project was developed from the pair’s first coming together at the French festival Baleapop in August 2014, where they were invited to perform a short residency.
"I think our sounds merge together in a really natural way, we found a really nice musical space together right from the beginning of the collaboration," says Abbott. "I think we’re both keen on meditation music, although pan pipes and wind chimes are usually best avoided." Wyllie, meanwhile, used the project as a chance for himself to reconnect with the saxophone. "Luke’s music was very free and open for me to play on; there’s no strongly defined chord changes or meter, but there is a lot of interesting, changing tones and timbres in there to play off," he said. "It was about finding a new way to play and I definitely felt a sense of freedom in that."