Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet make their way to the Sage this month so Lee Allcock caught up with the band to find out more about their new release and pushing the limits of music.
Your debut album ‘Knee Deep in the North Sea’ was Mercury-nominated. As a band that was just starting out, you must have been more than happy about that…
Yeah, it was great. It enabled us to do in a few months what would have taken a year to build up!
Since your first release, you’ve continued to embrace new technology and explore with your sound. So what can we expect from your new release, ‘Memory Streams’?
‘Memory Streams’ still has the hallmarks of a Portico Quartet album – saxophone, hang drum, double bass and a mix between acoustic and electronic drums – but we continue to use new technologies to develop the range of textures and songwriting. In this album, we more consciously work into our own sound and develop a more liver band sound compared to the preceding few albums.
As a band not afraid of pushing the limits, do you feel that that’s something you take into your everyday life too?
I’m not sure we push the limits of everyday life more than most. Although, as a musician you spend a lot of time travelling and you get to see a lot of the world as well as putting a lot of time into keeping up-to-date with culture/music and technology. So I suppose we try to develop that side of our lives as much as possible in the hope that it keeps our music exciting. But we’re a pretty relaxed bunch really.
You’re heading to the Sage 2 in Gateshead this month so what can gig-goers expect from your set? And how are you preparing?
This is going to be part of a tour we’ve been working towards for the last few months. Working out how to make the tracks work live as opposed to on the record is always a challenge. Building in space for improvisations and more spontaneity means that the show can go to exciting places and bounce off an audience/vibe of a venue. We’ll be playing a mix of stuff from ‘Memory Streams’ as well as a few from our back catalogue.
Portico Quartet head to Sage 2, Gateshead on Friday 8th November. Tickets, priced from £17.40, are available from sagegateshead.com.
