Isla

Reviews

• Sublime The Washington Post (USA)

• With 'Isla', produced by John Leckie, Portico have found their mojo: a thrumming, intensely textured and dynamic sound flowing between sax, bass, drums and hang. (Looks like a wok, sounds like a steel drum.) The subtle electronic shadowing and beefed-up bass recall EST, while the lead track traces a Balkan/Gypsy line and repetitious rhythmic measures reference Reichian minimalism without making you feel ill. All tracks are memorable and hang together like a suite. Brilliant. Independent On Sunday (UK)

• An Authentic Musical Force The Times (UK)

• Genuinely Innovative The Observer (UK)

• The follow-up to the Mercury debut has a brooding ambience...it also demonstrates, to the nay-sayers especially, the young lad's commitment to evolving and creative music-making. Bass and drums are high in the mix and hints of electronics and string overdubs have added a haunting sonic texture in places. The hang is still Portico's secret weapon though, a Swiss-made hand drum that chimes with an ethereal, as much as hypnotic, presence this time round...this highly atmospheric album stands on its on merits. Jazzwise (UK)

• Exotic and Hypnotic MOJO (UK)

• It's apt that Portico Quartet used to jam in club chill-out lounges, since their soothing, hypnotic music has many of the same qualities of high-grade electronica. Richer and more rewarding than their Mercury-nominated breakthrough, Isla still has jazz running through it's veins, based as it is largely around sax and double bass, but the London band have broader ambitions. The hang, an instrument vaguely akin to a steel drum, adds wisps of African flavour, and these nine instrumentals boast a melodic accessibility and cinematic scope as liable to woo Radiohead fans as patrons of Ronnie Scott's. Q Magazine (UK)