Portico Quartet
Knee Deep In The North Sea
BVOR2769

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONWIDE MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE 2008.
See the launch announcement here

Number 1 Jazz, Folk & World album of 2007. (Time Out)

“(A) massively assured debut.” Time Out

" ...pieces with a recognisably human touch. ECM with a little extra passion if you will". (Clive Davis Sunday Times)

“Their hook-based, jaunty, yet subtly layered music is tailor-made to find friends everywhere.” (John Fordham, Guardian)

"Portico Quartet sound like nothing you've ever heard'" (Time Out preview)

"Portico's hooks are undeniably attractive, though." (The Guardian)

• Group to be first ever signing for famous jazz venue
• Gilles Peterson and Robert Elms live sessions in Nov 2007 and Radio 4's Front Row
• Song chosen for MTV sync
• Cover feature, JazzUK December 2007
• Selected by John Fordham (Guardian) as the ones to watch for in 2008 (Jazzwise, Dec 2007)

PORTICO QUARTET

“The darlings of the jazz/leftfield jazz scene” Big Chill Website
‘Sound like nothing you've ever heard” Time Out
“A phenomenon in the making” The Independent
“A strikingly original sound."The Times


Portico Quartet are four young musicians from South London who sound like nothing you've ever heard before. Living and playing together they describe their ethos as like an Indy band that plays post-jazz, and their unique sound has won them fans from Gilles Peterson to Radio 4 and Notion to BBC Music Magazine, and made them Time Out's Jazz, Folk and World music album of the year.

Portico Quartet are Jack Wylie (soprano Saxophone), Milo Fitzpatrick (double bass), Nick Mulvey (Hang and percussion) and Duncan Bellamy (drums and Hang), and it's the mix of ethereal saxophone, flying saucer like Hang (imagine an otherworldly steel drum), clattering drums and earthy double-bass that gives their music it's inimitable, beautiful sound.

It was the chance purchase of the Hang by Duncan Bellamy, at a music festival, that inspired the young friends to start a band, and while their largely intuitive music references jazz and African music it's the Hang inspired trance-like repetitive patterns of Duncan and Nick Mulvey that propel the band into stranger pastures: invoking Philip Glass and Steve Reich's gamelan inspired minimalism.

Their dance friendly, melodic brand of hook-heavy post-jazz was honed busking across Europe and playing in unusual spaces; churches, galleries and chill-out zones. A weekly session at the South Bank and residency at the Brixton Ritzy earned them a cult following and inspired London's hippest jazz club, the Vortex, to start a label to release their music. Sessions on XFM and Radio 1 followed and a storming set at the Glastonbury Festival had Q hailing their ‘danceable chamber jazz soundscapes' that ‘should make them a Glasto fixture'. Further performances this year include the Big Chill, Shoreditch, Brecon and London Jazz Festivals and the band return to the Vortex jazz club on August 27th.

For further information please contact kerstan mackness 077756555573 [email protected]
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Some words about us and 'Knee Deep In The North Sea':

Jazz World and Folk Album of the year TimeOut

"Massively assured debut...this album showcases a singular and talented outfit, pivoting on a beautifully lithe rhythm section and foregrounding Jack Wyllie's fluent saxophone to meditative and mesmerising effect." TimeOut

"intriguing, bringing together and reshaping a variety of strands from jazz, world music and contemporary classical sources" The List

‘As traditionally hook based as anthing from rock, to hip hop” The Guardian

"This unforgettable disc shimmers with brilliance." BBC Music Magazine

“Haunting, beautifully austere sound” Metro

“Danceable chamber jazz soundscapes combine hectic soprano sax riffing over a dynamic rhythm section and should make them a Glasto fixture" ‘best of the rest' Q Glastonbury Review 2008

“Strange but beautiful stuff” Notion

"Floating somewhere between jazz and modern classical music, this young group make a strikingly original sound."The Times

"The group generates pieces with a recognisably human pulse – ECM with a little extra passion, if you will..chamber jazz with a Late Junction twist" Sunday Times

“Their hook-based, jaunty, yet subtly layered music is tailor-made to find friends everywhere.”The Guardian

‘Fresh, fun and different…an ear for a highly quotable melody” jazzwise

" Great stuff,... a cross between jazz and modern classical. It's mellifluous, exuberant and jaunty, full of catchy tunes and strong hooks" Allaboutjazz

"A band who make experimental and adventurous music sound wonderfully accessible, Portico Quartet are like nothing you've heard before." Straight No Chaser

Photos and bio here
Video here

for further information please contact kerstan ph: 077756555573 email: [email protected] www.riotmanagement.co.uk