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East Portal is a collaboration connecting two poles of American music: the thriving pop music industry of Los Angeles and the relentlessly experimental Brooklyn DIY scene. Out west, Patrick Taylor has lent his multi-instrumental skills to countless established and upcoming pop and indie rock acts in the studio, and has been touring bassist for acts like Nick Jonas and American Idol Live. From the east, John Atkinson has co-led influential underground Brooklyn loft party mainstays Aa (Big A little a) - hailed by Pitchfork for creating an “expertly sculpted 3D sound world” - since the mid-2000s and has more recently turned towards solo ambient explorations.

Together, they create a hyperreal world where jazz-inflected melodies fuse with delicate electroacoustic textures, and songs mutate from gorgeous compositions for upright, bass, strings, and clarinet to long stretches of swooning, deconstructed ambient. This unexpected pairing of LA polish and NY grit creates a bracingly fresh combination, brimming with unique sounds and new possibilities that transcend the cliches of both the pop and ambient worlds to arrive somewhere wholly new and forward-looking.

East Portal - East Portal - CD