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About Portico Quartet
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar ToRevisiting and Reinventing: Lionel Loueke and Portico Quartet
by Geno Thackara
Rearrangements and self-remixes can have a checkered story, yet sometimes the right treatment can give something just as much of a fascinating life the second time around. Lionel Loueke (with Gilles Peterson) HH Reimagined Edition Records 2022 Reinvention is one of Lionel Loueke's specialties already—from solo or duo works to the Afro-jazz trio Gilfema, his voice (figurative and literal) transforms any source songs with frisky rhythm and joyous flavor. Guitar and loops were ...
read morePortico Quartet: Terrain
by Geno Thackara
Much like the world of its creation—that of spring 2020, in the early phase of the Covid-19 shutdown—this Terrain is a landscape both familiar and strange. The ingredients of Portico Quartet's one-of-a-kind sound are recognizably there: the nebulous electronic soundscaping, the organic and gently compelling rhythms, the resonant tone of the hang drum which always feels beamed in from the beach of some distant planet. Like every album of theirs, though, it's a surprising step sideways from the previous one ...
read morePortico Quartet: Memory Streams
by Geno Thackara
If it was possible to directly sublimate lucid dreams into sound, it isn't hard to imagine the results coming out somewhat like this. Music is made to simulate that kind of loose natural flow of thoughts often enough, but it's more rare for it to capture the experience as directly and vividly as Portico Quartet do on their sixth full-length. Memory Streams isn't just suggestive of memories flowing and shifting, it feels like a fleeting, mysterious, wash-through-your-mind dream in itself. ...
read moreGeno Thackara's Best Releases of 2017
by Geno Thackara
My second year playing in the All About Jazz sandbox has been even more packed with great times and great musical discoveries than the first. I had the pleasure of reviewing plenty of terrific recordings just as strong or highly-rated as those on this list, not to mention some superb live shows, but these were the personal favorites that simply hit the spot the most. Portico QuartetArt in the Age of Automation Gondwana Records
read morePortico Quartet: Art in the Age of Automation
by Geno Thackara
It's an inevitable rule that pretty much any piece of automated technology, especially digital technology, gets criticized for replacing something natural. The synthesizer invited a backlash when it was used (and yes, often misused) as a substitute for 'real' instruments--ditto the computerized tones and robotic timekeeping of MIDI and digital programming. Nonetheless, it's just as inevitable that after each seemingly soulless invention comes along, someone figures out how to use it in ways artistic and meaningful. Joe Zawinul made early ...
read moreGuinness Cork Jazz Festival 2013
by Ian Patterson
Guinness Cork Jazz Festival Various Venues Cork Ireland October 25-28, 2013 Whether it was chance or fate is debatable but the fact is that had it not been for a cancelled bridge tournament the first Cork Jazz Festival might never have got off the ground. The 35th Guinness Cork Jazz Festival was officially launched in the Gresham Metropole Hotel, with a bit of the red carpet treatment for guests, sponsors and local dignitaries. It ...
read morePortico Quartet
by John Kelman
Change is inevitable, but when a group loses one of its founders and biggest conceptual fundamentals, can it really survive the loss? When Britain's Portico Quartet announced the departure of co-founder Nick Mulvey, whose hang (a UFO-shaped instrument that sounds somewhere between steel pans and gamelan gongs) was one of its most defining characteristics, the group's future certainly seemed in peril. Hard enough to replace any instrumentalist who's been so much a part of a group's musical lexicon, but just ...
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