The Portico Quartet are a bunch of guys in their early twenties who play instrumental music. Formed four years ago from two sets of schoolfriends, they share a house in East London, make recordings, and play festivals and clubs. Yet what distinguishes them from dozens of other Hackney hopefuls is the way they sound – a fresh, unclichéd resynthesis and reinvention of music that’s both pleasingly familiar and thrillingly new, like World Music from the future. With largely acoustic resources – percussion, bass and wind instruments – they have conjured... more