WOMAD

Portico Quartet

From United Kingdom

Mercury-nominated, percussion-heavy jazz four-piece. Now on Real World!
They might have the appearance of four well-bred student buskers on their gap year, but Portico Quartet's twentysomethings have successfully carved themselves into professional musicians with a clear, unstinting vision. And in a very short space of time, too. Drifting into everyone's ear space after their album Knee-Deep In The North Sea was nominated for last year's Mercury Music Prize, the foursome create gentle, beguiling soundscapes enlivened by occasional bursts of intense modern jazz. That they sound like no-one else around is possibly down to their adoption of the hang, a percussive instrument picked up on their travels (rather curiously, it's of Swiss origin) that's a clear cousin to the Caribbean steel drum. It's the hang's lilting sound that's cast most listeners spellbound as it duets with soaring alto sax - the pair are themselves carried along by additional percussion and some dextrous double bass playing.
(Biography by Nige Tassell)

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