Portico Quartet hint at dramatic style shift (From The Bolton News)

Portico Quartet hint at dramatic style shift

11:48am Thursday 4th March 2010

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EVERY year the Mercury music Prize is split into two camps - the big name bands hoping for critical acclaim as well as commercial success (Radiohead, Elbow, Arctic Monkeys), and the “who on earth are they” names, who even if they don’t do a Speech Debelle and beat the big boys to the prize can often turn out to be the most rewarding discovery on the shortlist.

Portico Quartet fall firmly into the latter category. Their debut album, Knee Deep In The North Sea, was nominated in 2008. Elbow won that year, but for the London foursome, the nomination was enough to change their lives pretty significantly.

“For a smaller band like us it means a lot more that it does for someone like Radiohead,” says saxophonist Jack Wyllie. “All the PR and press that would have taken us three years to do was crammed into three months.”

Although the band are most often classified as “jazz”, Jack says only ten per cent of what they do really fits into that category. “A lot of hardcore jazz people whouldn’t call us jazz at all,” he says.

In a world populated by five minute wonders all desperate to imitate the songs of their predecesors in an attempt to impress ridiculously coiffured reviewers Portico Quartet are a breath of fresh air. The latest album Isla, like Knee Deep In The North Sea, is set apart from its peers by the band’s use of the hang, an eerie-sounding percussion instrument that transforms the songs into dreamlike soundtracks.

It is this instrument that first brought the band together. Drummer Duncan Bellamy and percussionist Nick Mulvey had discovered one at Womad festival back in 2005, bought it and brought it back to London to busk with.

At the same time their University friends Milo Fitzpatrick, who plays the double bass in the band, and Jack, were also plying their musical trade on the streets of London.

“They were busking with just the hang and making good money,” says Jack. “Me and Milo tried it and we made nothing.”

They teamed up, and found a regular spot outside the National Theatre on London’s Southbank, making them probably the most cultured buskers in the city, which is where they were spotted.

“The National Theatre was really good to us,” says Jack. “Busking outside there helped us through university much better than getting a bar job.”

Five years and that Mercury nomination later, did they find the pressure was on when it came to recording the second album?

“Indirectly it probably did,” says Jack thoughtfully. “It brought us to the attention of a lot of people who were willing to invest a lot of time and money in us — that put pressure on us to live up to that.

“The label have been really good though, they didn’t push us to put vocals on or put a little house beat behind the songs like some would have done.”

The lack of vocals might initially make the Portico Quartet difficult for some people to access, but Jack insists that their influences are just as populist as the next band.

“Most people’s points of reference are songs with vocals in,” he concedes. “But we take lots of references from popular music. A lot of our melodies are very lyrical and the structures borrow from pop music and rock music as well as the improvisational aspect of jazz.”

Their next album could sound very different however if Jack’s current playlist is anything to go by.

“I’m listening to a lot of Dutch dubstep by a guy called Martyn,” he says. “And I’ve just downloaded about 20 Brian Eno albums. Also lots of classical music, Tortoise and the DJ Joy Orbison.

“We’re building up an arsenal of electronics that he haven’t really used yet so maybe we’ll move that way, although ideas for the third album are very much in their infancy.”

• Portico Quartet play Band on the Wall, Manchester, on March 14th. Tickets cost £10. For information or to book, visit bandonthewall.org or ring 0845 2500 500.