Portico - Living Fields [CD]

Portico make music which moves forward towards distant places while offering rare intimacy as well, arriving somewhere between structured pop songs and a disintegrating ambience, a unique blend of the sublunary and the celestial. Reverb drenched piano meshes with swathes of studio noise while vocals float high above a world of textural atmosphere. Portico are Duncan Bellamy, Milo Fitzpatrick and Jack Wyllie. Previously they were three-quarters of the highly successful and critically-acclaimed Portico Quartet. But ‘Living Fields’ is no continuation under a shortened name. As far as the band are concerned this is a debut. There are three remarkable singers on this record: Jono McCleery, Joe Newman (Alt-J) and Jamie Woon. These are not just guest performances and it shows. Woon shared a house with Portico in East London when they were writing and recording the album that would become Isla and he was working on “Mirrorwriting.” Joe Newman is a childhood friend of Wyllie's and Jono McCleery was introduced to Portico by Jamie Woon and has opened for them in the past. These existing relationships allowed for a consistency of thought and expression which makes this a truly remarkable record.