Sign to Real World Records. Announce new recording and spring tour dates. + Crisis Hidden Gig on June 2 with Star Sailor and Bombay Bycyle Club Portico Quartet are four young musicians from London who sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Their strange, beautiful sound was honed busking at the South Bank in London and playing in unusual spaces; churches, galleries and chill-out zones. The band, who all live together in East London, describe their ethos as like an Indy band that plays post-jazz and their unique, hooky sound has won them fans from Gilles Peterson to Radio 4 as well as catching the ear of Real World Records head honcho Peter Gabriel. Their debut album Knee-Deep In The North Sea (Babel/Vortex records) was named Time Out’s Jazz, Folk and World music album of the year for 2007 and was one of the Nationwide Mercury Prize albums of the year for 2008
Portico Quartet signed to Real World Records in February 2009 and will record their eagerly anticipated second album and label debut with producer John Leckie (Doves, Radiohead, The Stone Roses) at the helm at Abbey Road in May.
“We are delighted to be releasing Portico Quartet on Real World Records. They create environments with their own world of sounds, that are as stimulating as they are soulful " Peter Gabriel
“We are all really delighted to be joining the Real World family and of course excited to be recording at Abbey Road with one of our favourite producers John Leckie”. Portico Quartet
The band also tour in May with dates in Penzance, Constantine, Bristol, Plymouth, Brighton, Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry, Leeds and the Cheltenham and Bath jazz festivals. Full tour dates attached.
Portico Quartet are Jack Wyllie (sax and loops), Milo Fitzpatrick (double bass), Nick Mulvey (Hang) and Duncan Bellamy (drums and Hang), and it’s the mix of ethereal saxophone, otherwordly Hang, 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 WOMAD, 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.
For images, information and interviews please contact Siân Williams Ph: 020 7223 7456 e-mail: [email protected]
Portico Quartet Live Dates
Fri 1-May-09 830pm Acorn Arts Centre Penzance, Cornwall, TR18 4BU 01736 365520 www.acornartscentre.co.uk
Sat 2-May-09 730pm The Tolmen Centre, Constantine, TR11 5AA 01326 341353www.constantinecornwall.com
Sun 3-May-09 3.00 pm Cheltenham Jazz festival, Town Hall Pillar Room 0844 576 8970 www.cheltenhamfestivals.com
Mon 4-May-09 8.00pm The Croft, Bristol, BS1 3RW 0117 987 4144 www.the-croft.com
Tue 5-May-09 8.00pm Plymouth Barbican Jazz Festival, Plymouth, PL1 2NJ 01752 267131, www.barbicantheatre.co.uk
Wed 6-May-09 7.00pm The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, BN3 1AS 01273 736222 www.theoldmarket.co.uk
Fri 15-May-09 8.00pm Pacific Road Arts Centre, Liverpool, CH41 1LJ. 0151 666 0000, www.pacificroad.co.uk
Wed 20-May-09 8.00pm Brudenell Social Club, Leeds LS6 1NY, 0113 275 2411,www.brudenellsocialclub.co.uk
Thu 21-May-09 8.00pm Ruby Lounge, Manchester, M4 1QB, 0161 834 1392 www.myspace.com/therubylounge
Fri 22-May-09 8.00pm Taylor Johns, Coventry, CV1 4LY 024 76559958, www.thetinangel.co.uk
Sat 23-May-09 2.00pm Bath International Music Festival, Bath Komedia, BA1 1EP 01225 463362 www.bathmusicfest.org.uk
Tues 2-June-09 - tbc Crisis Hidden Gig, London (with Star Sailor and Bombay Bicycle Club) www.crisis.org.uk/hidden
Sat – 11- July 09 Lounge On the Farm – Canterbury
Sun-12-July-09 Loop festival – Brighton
Sat- 18-July-09 Durham Brass Festival
Fri -26-July-09 WOMAD festival
Further festival dates to be announced.
Press praise for Portico Quartet and Knee-Deep In The North Sea
“Try to imagine the coolest film never made. We mean really cool. Steve McQueen and Samuel L, on 'Easy Rider' choppers, in a French film-noir spy film, infiltrating a Yakuza Samurai cult. Portico Quartet would provide the soundtrack” Channel 4.com
“Will it win? Unprecedentedly for the jazz one – it might well do” The Times
“A phenomenon in the making” The Independent
“Uber-cool jazz buskers” the Guardian
“What Portico do is not simply jazz, it's well structured instrumental pop - sometimes upbeat and danceable like on Cittagazze; at other times dreamy, languid and atmospheric”. Q (The Music) Website
“They always returned to that grass-roots, organic sound that has taken them from the South Bank, via intimate venues like this, to – who knows: Mercury Music triumph?” The Independent
‘As traditionally hook based as anything 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
“Hummable melodies” the Sun
"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
‘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