Portico Quartet

Since 2005 the Portico Quartet has shaped a distinctive cinematic aesthetic that fuses jazz, electronica, ambient textures, and minimalism. Positioned at the forefront of South London’s nu-jazz scene, the ensemble earned a Mercury Prize shortlist for its 2007 debut, Knee Deep in the North Sea. Later releases appeared on Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records; the group then pared down to a trio for Living Fields on Ninja Tune before restoring its four-piece lineup and issuing Art in the Age of Automation in 2017 on Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana label.

The band originated in 2005 after founding member Duncan Bellamy acquired a Hang—an innovative Swiss instrument invented in 2000—while attending a music festival. This metallic lap drum, constructed from clamped shells, produces resonant tones akin to those of a steel drum and a Balinese metallophone. Although the quartet’s broader palette draws from modern jazz and African traditions, the Hang’s hypnotic qualities evoke the repetitive structures of Philip Glass and Steve Reich as well as gamelan ensembles. Regular appearances at the South Bank and a sustained residency at the Brixton Ritzy cultivated a devoted audience and prompted the Vortex, London’s leading jazz venue, to establish its own imprint for the group’s recordings.

Endorsed early on by archivist and broadcaster Gilles Peterson, Knee Deep in the North Sea was named jazz, folk, and world music Album of the Year for 2007 by Time Out and received a Mercury Music Prize nomination in 2008. With Jack Wylie on soprano saxophone, Milo Fitzpatrick on acoustic bass, and Nick Mulvey and Duncan Bellamy handling Hang and percussion, the ensemble’s contemporary approach drew favorable comparisons to the ethnically inflected work of Ben Allison, E.S.T., and the Cinematic Orchestra.

After signing with Real World Records, the quartet recorded its second album, Isla, at Abbey Road Studios in 2009. Mulvey’s departure in 2011 to launch a solo career led to Keir Vine’s arrival and prompted a decisive turn toward electronic instrumentation on the self-titled third release. The most substantial reconfiguration occurred in 2014 when Vine exited, reducing the band to a trio that joined Ninja Tune under the name Portico and explored experimental pop free of its earlier jazz orientation. For the 2017 album Art in the Age of Automation the musicians reclaimed both their original moniker and Gondwana affiliation while welcoming Vine back; the following year they released the companion collection Untitled (AITAOA #2), drawn from the same sessions. On 2019’s Memory Streams, also issued by Gondwana, the Portico Quartet revisited earlier material, weaving in fresh elements of prog-rock and abstract electronic soundscapes.