If you had to sum up what makes the East London based Portico Quartet tick, you would have to reference the influences of classic Jazz but there is so much else going on that any categorisation seems crude and reductive.
The key component of their sound is a Swiss-made percussion instrument called the hang; a tuned gong which sounds like a more subtle version of a steel drum and looks like two dimpled woks welded together.
A big record for the band was Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians and there is something in the way this hang drum defines and unifies the group sound that is similar to Reich's use of marimbas and zylophone on that groundbreaking recording.
The slick Global meets chill melodies also stem in part from the fact that Jack Wyllie (hang /percussion) and saxophonist Nick Mulvey studied mbira (thumb piano) and Balinese gamelan at the School of African and Oriental Studies. The other two members of the all-acoustic quartet are Duncan Bellamy on drums and Milo Fitzgerald on double bass.
Given the intricate patterns of these tunes it seems incredible to think that the band began life in 2005 busking on London's South Bank. They got their big break through a record deal with the Vortex Club's label Babel and the original 'Knee-Deep' album was recorded at Livingstone Studios by Sonny and self produced by the band. It gained a nomination for the 2008 Mercury Award and the quartet subsequently signed to Real World records.
The experience of recording in the Abbey Road studio with esteemed producer John Leckie for their second album, Isla, made them realise how much better their debut album could have been. They have therefore taken the unusual step of withdrawing the original record from circulation and are now replacing it with this re-mixed 'deluxe edition' which includes three extra tracks.
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It's a fairly bold move in that by re-issuing an album that was so highly praised on release they risk pissing off those who paid out for the original. But, then again, this is such a high-quality release that any criticism will surely be short-lived.
Leckie has worked with big names in World Music as well as high status bands like Radiohead (on The Bends), Stone Roses and New Order. His skill has been applied here to capturing the organic nature of the band's sound so that the tracks have a precision but also a real sense of openness.
The three bonus live tracks are alternative versions of the title track and the sublime Steps In The Wrong Direction recorded at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival alongside one previously unreleased track (All The Pieces Matter) recorded for Gilles Peterson's Radio One show at the BBC Maida Vale studios. These show off the band's controlled energy and rich melodies so well that they sound as good as, if not even better, than the studio recordings .
Portico Quartet are a class act with a rich, dynamic sound yet at the same time they can be warm and intimate. There is such a smooth flow to the album that there is little point in picking out any specific tracks.
I missed the original 'Knee-Deep' album when it came out so I can't do a before and after comparison but I can certainly recommend this new edition in the highest terms.
Portico Quartet's Website
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