Portico Quartet review: waves of a beautifully sounding melancholic swirl

Cinematic ambience waved through St Benedicts on Friday night as Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet serenaded a jam-packed Norwich Arts Centre.

The group are currently embarking on a European Tour to showcase their fifth studio album, 'Memory Streams', released on Godwana Records earlier in the autumn.

The quartet, made up of Duncan Bellamy (drums and electronics), Milo Fitzpatrick (bass / Keir Vine (hang drums and keys) and Jack Wyllie (saxophone and keys), came together in London whilst at university and since then, have fashioned an echo-electronic repertoire that has become widely heralded within UK jazz circles.

It is hard to categorise exactly which genre the group fall within, as their mesmeric, electronica jazz fusion leaves you feeling lost within the waves of a beautifully sounding melancholic swirl.

The band made their breakthrough in 2007 with their inaugural album 'Knee Deep in the North Sea', use a hybrid combination of electronic and acoustic percussion, and electronically influenced looped bowed bass and saxophone line which gives them a subtle uniqueness.

The audience watched on with awe, as the group closed out their set with another sampling from their latest album, 'Offset', an atmospheric jazz symphony on a performance that was very well received from the capacity crowd.

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