The second album from ex-London buskers, The Portico Quartet, Isla follows on from their critically acclaimed album, Knee Deep in the North Sea, which was nominated for a Mercury Music Award in 2007.
Their fusion of post-jazz ambience is spellbinding; this is a group of four extremely talented musicians who make it seem so simple and minimalist, yet it flows so smoothly. The pièce de résistance is the hang drum, which is the backbone for each track, combined with clattered saxophones, drums and a thumping double bass, it creates something so fresh and so unique you will not be able to divert your attention for the duration of the album.
Bringing in Radiohead producer, John Leckie, the band is a lot more ambitious and experimental with this outing. Starting with the fast-paced Paper Scissors Stone, it is a lot freer than their first effort, which did seem quite controlled in some places. This album lets all that go and the results are astonishing, each track seems to be like a progressive jam, John Leckie has made the musicians more confident and it can be heard in their music. Line is an enticing, hypnotic, eight minute lesson in ambience; a Caribbean style steel drum starts of and leads the track into a scattered, yet alluring climax. Another joy to behold is the tune Clipper, which does sound in places like it could be on a Radiohead album, the slow/fast tempo is truly brilliant. This is free, loose jazz at its best. The album goes out with a magnificent Soprano Saxophone based improv, Shed Song which is a brilliant way to close this magnificent album.
This has to be my album of the year so far; it should get second Mercury nomination and possibly a win. It’s a beautiful album and the Portico Quartet have revolutionized the way others and possibly I see ambient music but also my perception of modern jazz.
Lucas Jones
New album is flying off the shelves and the promo rolls on. Had a little spot on BBC1 Breakfast News this morning. Well fun. It was as light and pithy as you’d expect from a chat on the couch with morning presenters but will reach a lot of people. Lady called the hang a ‘large mushroom’! Thought I’d heard them all…
Bristol was wicked last Saturday. Old Vic theatre is the shizzle. Very atmospheric and big up to the people who came along and packed it out.
Basingstoke tomorrow and then off to Finland for a couple of shows this weekend. Woop woop!
Did a workshop this morning with year 10 pupils at Langdon Park School in Poplar. Most fun I’ve had in ages. We were a bit worried at first, thinking the kids would be harder and cooler than us but they were wicked! They were well into our music and well up for making music together. Made a class band called The Dream and wrote a piece on the spot called ‘De Ja Vue’. All their own ideas. Wicked. The whole class is coming to our album launch at Kokos in November! Look out for a thirty 15 year olds mashin’ up in the front row… Reminded me of the inspiring times musicians came in to my school. Got to give it to get it…
NEW ALBUM IS FLYING OFF THE SHELVES PEOPLE! Good reviews keep coming in. Top times in the Portico camp. We are live on ‘In Tune’ on Radio 3 tomorrow… tune in 5.10pm….
Woke this morning to be greeted by a bouquet of flowers from our record label to celebrate the release of our new album ‘Isla’. Very thoughtful of them, they take pride of place on our dinning room table.
Its out now in the UK only and climbing the amazon jazz charts at a rate of knots. There will be vinyl released soon too and a European release should follow in spring next year.
You can get a free E.P with it if you order it from rough trade. At
Just got back from a wicked trip in Germany. The main gig of the trip was a set at the Enjoy Jazz festival in Heidelberg last night (Wednesday) but we slipped in a cheeky little show in Berlin at the last minute. And a good move it was too. We arrived in a chilly Berlin early on Tuesday, excited to be there as none of us had been before and always heard good things. After a lunch of pretzels and brotwurst (no joke) we had an interview with New York based trendy mag Nylon. The accompanying photo-shoot was fun as the photographer, the charming Sabina, took us to cool locations around the city and got us doing funny things.
The gig that evening was only confirmed last week, so it was promoted almost entirely through Twitter, Facebook and our good pals Evan and Paul (thanks fellaz). We were chuffed to see the little basement club packed full and lots of very happy faces. Took a few tunes to warm up but they were yelling for more by the end. Boomtown.
Next day was off to Heidelberg, historic university town 5 hours train-ride away. Enjoy Jazz festival has been running for 11 years and has a top international line-up (fellow Brits Led Bib and Get The Blessing are there latter this week, plus Wayne Shorter soon too). The venue was cool and looked after us in style. Plus the sound was sweet and the audience was full. All good! Played well and got another strong response. All in all a top trip, the Germans dig it and we’ll be back for more…
Having managed to cut all the electricity from our house by fiddling with the knobs under the stairs (ahem), Jack and I are winding up the week in The Parlour café on Church St, Stoke Newington. Spent all of Wednesday with our favourite soundman Harry Bishop in an attempt to solve the ‘hang issue’. Finally, after years of scratching our heads with the conundrum of how exactly to mic-up the hang, we found ourselves in the presence of a team of top sound professionals, with an arsenal of microphones and a day to solve this sonic riddle. You see, the hang is a quiet instrument and the sound comes from quite a dispersed area (i.e. all over the top side) making it very difficult to capture a strong signal. Mics have to be turned up to hyper-sensitivity which means they pick up lots of sonic ‘spill’ from Duncan’s drums and Jack’s sax. Tricky. Harry arrived at our gaff early with a frightening amount of equipment including over 25 different mics and fellow sound-boffins Sam Parker (Lilly Allen’s soundman) and Matt from Sound Network. If they couldn’t solve the problem then it is literally unsolvable. We spent hour after hour trying different combinations of mics and mic-positioning and came up with some interesting results. Interesting at least to sound-geeks. The best tone came from the DPA Standard but this picked up too much spill. The overall winner was the Audio Technica 4053b. A very satisfying thing to know, I can tell you. This mic, combined with clever adjustments to our playing positions on stage and we should have the solution to our sonic niggles and a mind-blowing amazing sounding Portico Quartet. We do it for you, people. Remember that.
Thursday was spent promoting the new record ‘Isla’. Me and Dunc headed for an early interview with Time-Out at their offices on Tottenham Court Road. This favourite London mag has always supported us and was interested to know how we’ve been getting on. We chatted to Kim for about 40 minutes. Bit gutted she’d only been given the album earlier that morning so we couldn’t really talk about the new music, but hey. Otherwise all good. Had amazing walk in an unbelievably crisp autumnal Regents Park.
Later on we did a session for the British Council Selecta (a British Council sponsored podcast about new British music that goes out worldwide with a listener ship of 2 million!) at Somethin’ Else productions near Old Street. Recorded 4 tracks and bit of chat. Look out for this on various radio stations from next week.
Going tonight to see Jono McCleery and United Vibrations at the Cross Kings in Kings Cross…
Having enjoyed the first installment of Portico Invade Somerset so much, we were unprepared for the decidedly ominous fashion with which Part 2 kicked off. Midway down the M5, with Fleetwood Mac pumping through the car stereo, our upbeat mood was shattered by the sudden bursting of one of our vans tires. We skidded to a halt in the hard-shoulder and thanked the gods of jazz nothing worse happened. Milo and Dunc changed the tire and we proceeded to Burnham-on-Sea thankfully unscathed. For those who don’t know, Burnham-on-Sea is a pretty knackered seaside town, all empty amusement arcades and old peoples homes. And a spanking arts centre. Weird. The gig was about two-thirds full and went fine. The real fun began, however, when we met our host for the evening- Jamie Davis. Jamie has spent the last 30 years as the drummer for 60s/70s pop novelty act Mungo Jerry (they did ‘In The Summertime” which Shaggy so memorably sampled). He lives in a mansion on the beach and has obviously made loads of dosh and dedicated his life to spending it on stuff to fill his decadent home. Think John Lennon-style white grand piano at the bottom of a spiral staircase… Still, lovely bloke and his wife cooks a mean chilli and mixes a stiff whiskey and diet coke. Chin chin.
Gig number six was Lydford on Fosse. After popping by BBC Radio Somerset for a quick chat about our tour, we arrived in Lydford- a charming little village more in keeping with the quaint Somerset we’d come to expect than Burnham was. Packed audience, wicked acoustics and a top set. We stayed the night with a lovely elderly couple called Jane and Peter Walker who were sun dial experts and fixed us a cracking breakfast. With gig number 7 in Chilcompton only a short drive away, we decided to spend the day in near-by Glastonbury, chilling in a café among all the shops touting their pick-and-mix, quasi-spiritual esoteric wares. Duncan looked very uncomfortable, Nick bought some sandalwood incence. Such is Portico Quartet.
Chilcompton that evening was the toughest acoustic we’d encountered- more of a gym than music venue, but once again the people turned up and a good show was had. Nick’s reference to NWA’s Straight Outta Compton fell on deaf ears but generally the crowd were in more than appreciative. Support was provided by the marvellous Helena who also put us up for the night and plied us with booze and good cheer (“shall we just get bollocksed?”, she suggested in response to Jack and Milo’s heated discussion on phrygian mode). Thanks to Dawn and Max too, for their promotion and hospitality.
And so to East Quantoxhead for our final gig of our tour. A beautiful, remote village (bloody hard to find!), a full house and one of the nicest shows of the whole trip. Modest in many ways as these gigs were, you can’t beat the simple joy of an attentive audience in an atmospheric space.
All in all a great tour. I think we are looking forward to the technical luxuries of the arts venues and clubs of our forthcoming national tour, but we are all the better for the 8 village halls we had the pleasure of playing. Not to mention the warmth and generosity with which we were received everywhere we went. A big thank you to Beccy from Take Art for programming the tour.
Below is a link to a video of us playing a version of Line. We didn’t use this take for the album in the end but it has some nice parts in it and was beautifully shot by York Tillyer.
What a beautiful place Somerset is! Much as I love Hackney, it is a pleasure to be on this run of shows organised by Somerset arts company Take Art. Leaving the Octegenarians of Wooten Courtnay suitably charmed after our first night, we headed to Wookey Hole- a village famous for its caves and also for employing a witch, who reportedly gets paid 50K a year! Gig was packed out with people of all ages, 2 dogs and a giggling baby. Top atmosphere… Halfway through the 2nd set we were stopped by a very appreciative and thoroughly pissed lady who insisted upon ceremoniously placing a colorful beaded necklace around Nicks neck and a bracelet on Milo’s wrist!
Woke early the next day and the 4 of us set off on a solid 6 mile walk through the glorious green country to the near-by village of Priddy for a pub lunch. We then drove the short distance to Churchinford and our 3rd gig. Friday night in Churchinford is a good place to be. Warm people and a attentive crowd, a very enjoyable gig. Much love and thanks to the Dawson family (Dave, Angela, Holly and Theo) for their great hospitality.
Saturday was lazy and involved a swim in the pool and onther pub lunch. Made it to our 4th gig by about 5pm, this time in Stoke St Gregory. Jo and John promoted this show well (aother good turn out of over 100 people), put us up in fine fashion and threw a party in our honour too! Memorable times, truly generous people.
Tour continues later this week with 4 more dates beginning Thursday the 1st at The Princess Hall, Burnham-on-Sea.
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