It’s been way too long since we heard from Town Portal, and frankly it was pretty difficult to keep a tight lip when earlier this week we received an email alerting us to imminent new material from these Danish mystics.
Due November 7th, Grindworks is set to be the band’s first album in six years after 2019’s Of Violence, and to say the least, we’re excited to see how Grindwork compares, with “Crushed Under Something Gentle” making for one hell of an intro.
Grindwork will also be band’s first record signed to their own label, Dream Bureau, which was the title of one of our favorite tracks off of The Occident. But let’s get with the now – check out “Crushed Under Something Gentle” below:
At first, the song hits with the classic high-strung arrangement of post-rock meets math, but the actual string parts courtesy of Lisa Marie Vogel and Nicole Hogstrand lend another level of majesty to things, and it’s really cool to see Town Portal try something like this. Here’s a bit more from the press release:
“Crushed… is a track we’ve been itching to share, as it captures some of the new directions we’ve explored this time around. It starts off as a playful, almost deconstructed waltz before venturing into a series of grinding, dissonant experiments. We don’t often go “epic,” but the song’s climax ventures there – driven in no small part by Lisa Marie Vogel and Nicole Hogstrand’s string arrangement. We wanted the outro to feel crushing and pretty at once. Like the end of the world, but against a beautiful sunset. The Violin and Cello bring a texture and a melodic depth to the piece that we could never have conjured on our own…”
On Grindwork, TOWN PORTAL team up with engineer Mark Roberts (Delta Sleep, Black Peaks, etc.) to craft an album that departs from the bleak, stringent sound of its predecessor Of Violence (2019), while retaining the grit and heft introduced to the band’s sound on this album. Instead, Grindwork dives into a playful exploration of the raw materials of composition without self-imposed restraints, reflecting a renewed sense of creative joy within the trio.
This sense of joy that permeates Grindwork sharply contrasts with a world increasingly starved of it. A world in which any creative endeavour could be perceived as trivial or even selfish in the face of the planetary and political crises of our time. At the same time, it’s a reaction to exactly that deprivation — a refusal to surrender to the pull of creative cynicism or apathy. On Grindwork, TOWN PORTAL circles back to the fragile idea that creating something still matters.
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