2007 - Portico Quartet - Knee Deep in the North Sea

This very young and fresh-faced quartet can still be found busking on London's South Bank at weekends, but they're clearly a band on the rise. They have one obvious claim to distinction: the presence among their line-up of a "hang", a new-fangled instrument that sounds like an ultra-refined cousin of the steel pan. It gives the band a soft-edged, exotic sound that make it ripe for the crossover market.



Fortunately it's more than that. Jack Wyllie plays a beautifully lyrical high sax, Mike Fitzpatrick is a coolly inventive bass player. The music's melodic hooks are smoothly appealing, but its rhythmic subtleties and harmonic twists save it from blandness.