Portico Quartet

Event information

Hey! Manchester and the Freedom Principle present Portico Quartet plus Library Tapes and the Hunter/Andreae Quartet

Portico Quartet are four young musicians from South London. They describe themselves as an indie 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 seen them claim Time Out's Jazz, Folk and World Music Album of the Year. They were nominated for this year's Mercury Prize too, impressing with their performance at the award ceremony.

The 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. Their hang-inspired, trance-like repetitive patterns propel the band into stranger pastures than most: invoking memories of Philip Glass and Steve Reich's gamelan-inspired minimalism.

Their dance-friendly, melodic post-jazz was honed busking across Europe and playing in unusual spaces such as churches and galleries. 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'.

The Times said that they were 'floating somewhere between jazz and modern classical music', adding that 'this young group make a strikingly original sound'. Allaboutjazz said that their album, Knee Deep In The North Sea, was 'mellifluous, exuberant and jaunty, full of catchy tunes and strong hooks', while Straight No Chaser believed Portico Quartet were 'like nothing you've heard before' - 'a band who make experimental and adventurous music sound wonderfully accessible'.

Also playing at this special event is Gothenburg's classical/experimental/ambient one-man-band Library Tapes, whose new album, A Summer Beneath the Trees, was awarded 7.9/10 on Pitchfork. Local support comes from The Hunter/Andreae Quartet, mixing improvisation, cinematic soundscapes and rhythmic melodies.

http://www.myspace.com/porticoquartet
http://www.heymanchester.com
http://www.freedomprinciplemusic.co.uk