It seemed almost impossible, the critically acclaimed, Mercury Music Prize nominated Portico Quartet playing in a tiny village hall on a Sunday afternoon in rural Somerset. The group, whose Cheltenham Jazz Festival performance earlier this year was a total sell out, were playing the last of eight dates in tiny village halls in Somerset. The tour was organised by Take Art, the local arm of the National Rural Touring Forum which aims to bring top quality performances to rural areas. In my native Herefordshire Arts Alive perform a very similar function. The work of these organisations is praiseworthy and vital and Take Art are to be applauded for attracting such brilliant and (in jazz terms) high profile musicians to Somerset for this tour. A word too for Andy Rock of the village hall committee who was the co-ordinator of today’s performance.

Portico’s début album “Knee Deep In The North Sea” was released to almost unanimous acclaim in 2007 and the following year was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. The group have attracted something of a cult following, far younger than the usual jazz demographic and these fans certainly turned up in their numbers at Cheltenham. On this “Rural Tour” however audiences have been mainly local with the majority discovering the band and their extraordinary music for the first time.

At East Quantoxhead the age range varied from babes in arms to grandparents and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly aided by beverages ranging from cups of tea to the local scrumpy. The village itself is a picture postcard estate village with thatched cottages, a duckpond and a footpath to the beach, around a fifteen minute walk away. It’s all quintessentially English, rather like Portico’s music despite the presence in the group’s unique instrumental line up of the remarkable Swiss designed hang drum.

Ah… the hang. No review of the Portico Quartet would be complete without a description of the hang. References are normally made to the fact that this most distinctive looking of percussion instruments either looks like the Cadbury’s Smash alien or two woks glued together. With Cadbury seemingly about to be taken over by Kraft I think I prefer the wok analogy. Chief hangman Nick Mulvey now deploys three of the metal instruments, each differently tuned to allow him to cover virtually a full octave. Part steel pan, part gamelan no other musicians have as fully integrated the hang into their sound as the Porticos. The hang functions as both a rhythm and melody instrument, qualities that Milo Fitzpatrick also brings to his double bass. With Jack Wyllie’s saxophones nominally the only bona fide melody instrument in the band the onus is on Mulvey, Fitzpatrick and drummer Duncan Bellamy to produce something extra special on their instruments, something they do with a vengeance.

Still frighteningly young the Porticos met as students and acquired their first hang at the 2004 Womad festival. Sensing they could do something really interesting with the new instrument they initially became the London Hang Quartet (“it sounded too much like a lynch mob”) before eventually acquiring their snappier new moniker. The fledgling group acquired a huge word of mouth as a result of their busking on the South Bank and subsequently all over Europe. Oliver Weindling of Babel Records encouraged the group to record and the label released “Knee Deep” in conjunction with North London’s Vortex Jazz Club. The Mercury nomination saw the band’s career really take off and the new album “Isla”, due for release on October 19th will appear on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label, a nice piece of symmetry bearing the mind the purchase of that first hang at a Womad festival. The album has been produced by esteemed rock producer John Leckie (of Stone Roses fame, among many others) and will be reviewed in detail on this site in due course. It’s a darker, more nuanced piece of work than their début with a greater emphasis on improvisation and the subtle use of electronics. The group will soon be undertaking a national tour to support the album. They will be appearing as part of a double bill with 2009 Mercury nominees Sweet Billy Pilgrim, a more song based outfit whose work is aired frequently on BBC Radio 3’s “Late Junction”. Dates for this tour appear on our news pages. In the meantime this rural jaunt was a good warm up for the Porticos and who knows, many of those present in Somerset’s village halls may take the trip up to Bristol Old Vic for the opening date of the national tour. 

Today the band elected to play two sets of around fifty minutes each. Many of the numbers on “Knee Deep” were written during the band’s busking days and are guaranteed crowd pleasers. Here, as on much of the rest of the tour the band ‘s first set concentrated on material from their début with the more challenging material from Isla coming once they’d won the audience over. Not that this took long, the infectious “Knee Deep In The North Sea” itself commenced proceedings with Wyllie’s soprano sax, a distinctive curved model, dancing over the complex rhythmic layers laid down by Mulvey, Bellamy and Fitzpatrick, the latter sometimes using the sound box of his instrument as an additional rhythmic component. In this environment drummer Bellamy often deployed brushes rather than sticks, only picking up the latter as saxophonist Wyllie really started to probe the harmonies. Portico’s music is melodic,catchy, accessible and hummable but also fiendishly complex rhythmically requiring astonishing precision from the whole band. Despite the exotic instrumentation I think it’s also very English, I just can’t imagine Americans making music like this. There’s no bombast to the Portico Quartet, sometimes they remind me of a modern successor to Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Café Orchestra. 

From “Isla” came “The Visitor” which saw Wyllie picking up the tenor and also looping a sax phrase to provide a sonic backwash. At one point Mulvey draped his hangs with a blanket to dampen the sound. The techniques for playing the hang are varied and indeed the band may still be discovering new possibilities. Most commonly Mulvey uses soft head sticks or beaters, sometimes two, at others four like a vibes player and on one occasion two in one hand one in the other. The instrument can also be played with the bare hands, a technique favoured by drummer Asaf Sirkis the only other musician I’ve seen deploying the instrument. Sirkis’ method seems more akin to the tabla than Portico’s approach. Returning to “The Visitor” the darker tone of much of the"Isla” was evident as Wyllie’s tenor skirted over the dense rhythmic undertow generated by his colleagues. Portico’s interlocking rhythms owe something to composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass but Wyllie’s increasingly unfettered sax work now draws on figures such as Pharoah Sanders. Much of Wyllie’s playing on the new album exhibits a middle eastern sounding influence that he claims comes from listening to Sanders.

From “Knee Deep” the tune “Steps In The wrong Direction” proved to be a big crowd favourite. Building from Fitzpatrick’s bass intro through Wyllie’s snaking soprano the piece exhibited a hypnotic, almost danceable quality as the piece gained rhythmic impetus. Feet could be seen tapping and bodies swaying involuntarily as the crowd really got into this exotic sounding music.

Also from the first album “Something’s Going Down On Zavodovski Island” is another guaranteed winner that’s been in the group’s repertoire for a long time. This saw Bellamy come forward to play the hangs while Mulvey took up residence behind the drum kit. Fitzpatrick and Wyllie opened the piece on arco bass and soprano before the piece gathered momentum. Inspired by a David Attenborough documentary (about penguins, interestingly enough) this is another tune with an eminently hummable melody.

“Dawn Patrol” closed the first half of the programme. Although it appears on “Isla” the tune has been in the set lists for some time and was played when I last saw the band at Brecon Jazz Festival over a year ago. Mulvey returned to the hang and Bellamy to the drum kit. Again Fitzpatrick’s bowed bass opened the piece, Wyllie introduced loops into the mix and pushed the envelope on soprano on some almost free jazz episodes. It’s another example of the band expanding their boundaries on the new release.

The band enjoyed a great reception for the first set and happily chatted to audience members during the interval. From what they told me and from reading their blog entries it seems they had thoroughly enjoyed the rural tour, taking in plenty of walking in the beautiful Quantock Hills between gigs and following their exertions with a pub lunch. It would seem that they had been very well fed and watered throughout the whole week.

Having got the audience on their side with the first set the band concentrated in the main on newer material for the second. “Line” opened with the hang and was almost minimalist, re-enforcing the Steve Reich comparisons. Wyllie’s sparse soprano lines and Fitzpatrick’s eerie bowed bass added to the mysterious atmosphere.

“Isla” itself saw Wyllie deploying both types of saxophone, commencing on tenor before switching to the more familiar soprano. He also added electronic effects to a number that combined the melodicism of their first album with the darker timbres of the second. It’s appropriate that this transitional piece should be chosen as the title track of the new record.

“Clipper” transported the band into yet more challenging waters. After a melodic opening with Wyllie on tenor free jazz squalls saw the saxophonist manipulating his sound. The Porticos don’t do jazz solos per se but this piece included features for bassist Fitzpatrick in conjunction with drummer Bellamy. After a brief passage for solo drums Bellamy also engaged in a duet with Mulvey’s hangs. A word here for bassist Milo Fitzpatrick whose power really comes out in a live situation. He has an enormous tone and displays a remarkable agility on his instrument. His atmospheric work with the bow is a considerable bonus. On album his work is less obvious but live his is a huge presence.

For “Paper Scissors Stone” Wyllie picked up a cheap plastic melodica, blew a single phrase and looped it. One or two members of the audience were disappointed he didn’t take a solo on it. Instead he picked up his soprano and soloed over the drone he had created supported by Fitzpatrick’s arco bass and Bellamy’s cymbal scratchings. The effect was haunting and ethereal. As the piece gathered momentum the middle eastern influence returned again underpinned by Bellamy’s chattering drums and the undulating rhythms of the hang.

The lilting, “Life Mask” also featured gentle looping with Wyllie on soprano. Fitzpatrick’s lyrically resonant bass solo was also a highlight.

The ever popular “News From Verona” from the group’s first album closed the show. The opening track on their début CD began with a solo hang introduction from Mulvey deploying the four mallet technique. Bellamy’s drums created a rolling pulse as Wyllie’s trademark soprano floated over the top. This is a tune that has taken on a life of it’s own since it was first recorded. The current live version features a remarkable bowed solo from Fitzpatrick that was absent from the original.

Although they didn’t perform an encore the group received a standing ovation from the seventy or so present. They sold a whole load of copies of “Knee Deep” too. If this success was repeated throughout the tour- and I’m sure it was- they’re probably the best selling act in North Somerset.

This was not only a great concert but more importantly a great EVENT. After chatting some more with the locals the band eventually packed up their gear and reluctantly headed back to London.

As for us we decided to stay true to the spirit of the tour. As we travelled home what else could we do but stop off for a pub lunch.

Useful links;

http://www.takeart.org for details of more high quality entertainment events in rural Somerset

http://www.nrtf.org.uk The website of the National Rural Touring Forum

http://www.myspace.com/porticoquartet for details of album releases and tour dates plus the group’s blogs

blog comments powered by Disqus