The 10 best tracks of the week

See the last page for a Soundcloud playlist of all the tracks. Looking for more new music? Follow the Nialler9 New Music playlist on Spotify. Updated weekly.

1. Portico – ‘101’

The Portico Quartet make a grander gesture with help from the Alt-J frontman

If you thought Portico were an experimental jazz band, you can think again. After Nick Mulvey left to start a successful solo career, and his replacement, Keir Vine did the same, the remaining members of the group: Duncan Bellamy, Milo Fitzpatrick and Jack Wyllie decided to shorten the name and go for something different.

The press release for the new album Living Fields, says the band consider it their debut. It’s certainly a different tack to what they did before. ‘101’ features Alt-J’s Joe Newman on lead vocals (he was Wyllie’s neighbour as a kid) and is closer to Newman’s own band’s reach for grandeur on ‘Hunger Of The Pine’ with some largescale electronic arrangements embedded within. The band are playing Whelan’s on April 20th. The album is out next month on Ninja Tune.

Hear also: ‘Bright Luck’.

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