I’m still having trouble putting Portico Quartet into words. These four boys from London have just dropped their new album Isla and are carving their own niche between the modern classical and jazz movements. The music is haunting, hypnotic and abrupt all at once with some incredibly abstract elements that come across as familiar rather than confrontational. I’ll let the video above do the talking or this more formal bio below:
The Portico Quartet are a bunch of guys in their early twenties who play instrumental music. Formed four years ago from two sets of schoolfriends, they share a house in East London, make recordings, and play festivals and clubs. Yet what distinguishes them from dozens of other Hackney hopefuls is the way they sound – a fresh, unclichéd resynthesis and reinvention of music that’s both pleasingly familiar and thrillingly new, like World Music from the future. With largely acoustic resources – percussion, bass and wind instruments – they have conjured and refined a group signature that’s immediately recognisable. Thanks to the use of the hang, a tuned percussion instrument bought on impulse at a music festival, they have a sound that is instantly attractive, yet uncompromisingly individual, and it’s this, combined with the cheerful eloquence of their performances, that has brought Portico Quartet a long way in a short time.
