Isla
Portico Quartet
Real World
Recordings.
Portico Quartet
doesn’t really fit into this list’s emphasis on veteran-heavy, household names,
in no small part because they’re a group of twenty-something outsiders to
jazz’s often purist tenets. But forget that: despite their greenhorn status,
Portico Quartet show a breadth of talent that thrives outside of the genre’s
comfortable expectations.
Wielding the
unlikely choice of hang – a percussive instrument that creates a variety of
tones not unlike a steel drum – one would imagine Portico Quartet’s sound as
being warm and sunny. Not the case. While Isla does feature vague Caribbean
connotations on account of the hang, it’s clouded by tense instrumentation and
overcast arrangements that have validated constant comparisons to – of all
bands – Radiohead. Like the catalog of that celebrated rock group, Isla
illustrates the sort of unexplored universe modern music needs more of.
No comments:
Post a Comment