Staff Reviews

Portico - Living Fields

Review by Haydon Spenceley

The quartet is dead. Long live Portico.»

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Limited copies come with a bonus CD. The bonus CD includes three unreleased tracks and an alternative version of 'Where You Are'. Portico (formerly Portico Quartet) release their new album, 'Living Fields' via Ninja Tunes. 'Living Fields' is an album of catharsis and redefinition, born of a desire to create newness out of loss and change. You could also say that the band Portico themselves have undergone a process of ending and re-beginning. 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. 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. Long established relationships between them all allowed for a consistency of thought and expression which makes this a truly remarkable record.
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