Portico Quartet co-founder Jack Wyllie steps forward under his own name for the first time with Eternal Spring, a deeply atmospheric debut solo album shaped by ideas of hope, renewal and the cyclical beauty of nature.
Best known as the saxophonist and flautist in the Mercury Prize nominated Portico Quartet and one third of ambient improvisational trio Szun Waves, Wyllie draws together contemporary jazz, ambient, classical and post rock across the record. The album features an impressive cast of collaborators including former Portico Quartet bandmates Duncan Bellamy and Milo Fitzpatrick, Polish composer Hania Rani, cellist Dobrawa Czocher and Australian mezzo soprano Lotte Betts-Dean.
Across Eternal Spring, Wyllie balances soaring saxophone and delicate flute with rippling strings, piano, synths and cyclical rhythms. The uplifting ‘Lightness’ opens with murmuring strings and building piano before Wyllie’s soprano saxophone announces what feels like the arrival of a new dawn, while ‘Magazine’ carries a pastoral energy and the dreamlike ‘Pavilion’ leans further into the album’s ambient side. Elsewhere, the cinematic ‘Love Colour’ combines synths and cello with Wyllie’s expressive saxophone, while the title track brings a more dynamic rhythmic edge.
The album closes with ‘Yesterday Today’, created alongside Hania Rani, providing a blissful reminder of the inevitability of change and neatly capturing the sense of optimism running throughout the project.
Recorded across Saint Thomas Clapton, Max Richter’s Studio Richter Mahr and London’s Fish Factory, Eternal Spring represents a natural meeting point between the different musical worlds Wyllie has explored throughout his career.
“It was like I’d found a natural space between all my projects,” Wyllie explains, “something I could hone in on.”
Drawing inspiration from figures including Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Adams, John Surman and James Holden, Eternal Spring feels both expansive and intimate, marking an assured new chapter for Wyllie as he finally puts his own name front and centre.
Jack Wyllie sat down with Wordplay Magazine to answer our infamous 10 Questions:
1. So tell me, how did it all begin? What sparked your love for music?
I think the first music I really obsessed about was Queen. I reckon I was about 6 and I had a little cassette player, I would put it on in my room and wonder why the whole world wasn’t doing that, why people didn’t listen to Queen all the time. It was just the most mind melting music for my 7 year old brain. I think I then got into Micheal Jackson, I would dress up like him and learn how to do the moonwalk. I also loved the Beatles and Van Morrison, they accompanied long car journeys with my parents.
When I was about 10 I had this real interest in jazz music. I wasn’t so much the music itself but more my perception of the aesthetics of it, I really like the idea of a silhouetted sax player with a sunset in the background, or some kind of bleeding gums Murthy type character playing sax under a bridge. There were a few random jazz albums like Kind of Blue, Joshua Redman and pat metheny. Anyway my parents bought me a saxophone and I had some lessons. By 13 I was also playing a lot of guitar and used to play them both in jam bands into my teenage years. We would play long improvisations somewhere between rock and jazz…
So I guess that’s when my interest really started, it was hanging out with friends and making music together, a part social part creative way to spend time with people.
2. Who are some artists that influence you and that you want to work with in the future?
I mean so many but I guess to focus in on one or two – I’ve listened to A LOT of Terry Riley over the years. I love the combination of playfulness and rigor in his music. It feels light but has quite technical and virtuosic underpinnings. I also feel like I can really visualize the patterns in it, the way the shapes form and dissolve is very pleasing to me. Secondly Harold Budd, his work is so broad and has collaborated with so many amazing artists, Cocteau twins, Brian eno etc but retains a very special and magical sound.
3. What projects do you have coming up and can you give us any info on them?
Well I’m writing another solo record, which isn’t too far off being done. Also I’ll be taking a band on tour to play this album. I’m also working on a new Forgiveness record which is an ambient new age group I play in with a couple of friends JQ and Richard pike.
4. How would you describe your sound?
I guess this album is somewhere between minimalist classical music, ambient and jazz. It’s an optimistic album I think, it’s generally major, verdant, kind of natural sounding, and I think refreshing.
5. What’s your proudest moment to date so far as an artist?
Theres a couple. I think recently playing saxophone with Hania Rani at the Berlin philharmonic on top of a 40 piece orchestra.
I just get to solo and improvise on top and around them. It really is quite surreal and a privilege.
Also some of the shows / tours I’ve done with my band Portico Quartet. I feel really proud of everything we’ve done but particularly after some shows like the ones we’ve done at the Barbican, it can feel like we’ve done something special.