Music > Live Reviews

Portico Quartet

Norwich Arts Centre

06/04/18

Having previously become quorate again with the addition of Kier Vine, Portico Quartet last year returned to instrumental ambience (after a brief foray into electronic pop) with “Art in the Age of Automation” - an album that still had echoes of electronica, but can otherwise be fairly described as a reinvention of their original sound. Perhaps the band thinks it represents a perfect balance. It was certainly heavily showcased throughout the evening at the Arts Centre, as was work from the forthcoming companion album, cheekily entitled “Untitled.”

Portico Quartet had such an astonishing array of gear squeezed onto the modest stage that support was never going to be anything other than a bloke with a guitar, which Daudi Matsiko proved to be, teasing delicate, ethereal noises from his guitar while whispering his lyrics as if making a confession. His brief set took a while to build, with the muted deliver of both “Falling” and “Annihilation” being frankly underwhelming. Perhaps it was just nerves – when Matisiko spoke he stumbled over his words and was charmingly self-deprecating. Declaring that he loved Portico Quartet but liked Norwich, it was only the laughter from the audience that alerted him to faint praise he had inadvertently bestowed, after which he simply couldn’t stop giggling. He was such an affable fellow that it feels mean spirited to take issue with the substance of his work, and in “Split Milk” and the deceptively acerbic “Sandwiches”, there were the beginnings of something interesting, despite their charms nonetheless remaining unresolved. It was only when he swapped his guitar for mini keyboard, and launched into “Hymn”, an ode to his Dad, that we started to see some much needed light and shade, but by then it was nearly all over.

Sometimes a venue and band perfectly complement each other, and so it was with the Portico Quartet at St Swithin's church. Despite back projections straight out of Hawkwind’s toy box  and lighting played over far too much theatrical smoke (which, incidentally, had your correspondent first gagging and then grumpily escaping to the rear of the hall) it nonetheless quickly became apparent that the Arts centre has rarely had a more fitting musical accompaniment. In an admittedly compact set of around 75 minutes, the band can’t have played more than half a dozen numbers, each meandering this way and that, the aural grandeur of the quartet’s complex melodies and rhythms somehow perfectly complemented the grand old building. As the sound, and the smoke, drifted up way beyond the lighting gantry to the vaulted ceiling, I found myself noticing a carved wooden angel that I don’t ever recall seeing before, and fancifully imagined it flying in for the evening, gripping on and looking down on the audience swayed gently, as might reeds in the wind. If that all sounds a tad Zen, I can only say it was that sort of evening.

Much of their mesmeric sound contain nods to likes of Steve Reich or Terry Riley, while fans of BEAK>, Forest Swords or even Holy Fuck, would also have found much to appreciate. Positioned somewhere on the road between Mogwai and Mammal Hands, the music was best taken as a whole (notional titles were introduced, but it would be a fib to suggest they went in). As Jack Wyllie’s haunting saxophone melodies seductively weaved around the emphatic percussion of Duncan Bellamy, Milo Fitzpatrick kept the momentum going with his sonorous bass lines. Perhaps best of all, newcomer Kier Vine was on Hang duty. Something akin to a steel drum that vaguely resembles an outdoor barbeque, the Hang is central to the quartet’s signature sound. Used sparingly, but effectively, it added distinction to a sound that was already impressive in its scope, ambition and straight forward competence.

Competence may seem like an odd, even backhanded, compliment to level at a band but it’s worth remembering that while huge symphonic soundscapes are increasingly in vogue these days, the aural cathedrals produced by the likes of Black Maas or Max Cooper are knocked up on laptops, while these boys were doing it for real - proper musicians playing their instruments properly. That’s not something to be dismissed lightly.