Expect Something Beautiful

It's hard to imagine that a group as bottom-heavy as percussionist Pierre Favre's new ensemble could actually sound light and ethereal. But Fleuve does just that. With a septet featuring two basses, tuba/serpent, percussion and, at times, bass clarinet, there's no shortage of warmth and depth. But with guitar, harp and soprano saxophone fleshing out the middle and top end, Fleuve manages to have both weight and an airy ambience that works, in no small part, due to Favre's carefully crafted compositions and the kind of sonic transparency that's long been a defining aspect of the ECM aesthetic.

Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection.
There is something about the music on Malicorne's album `Le Bestiaire' (roughly translated to `The Animals') that transports me to another space and time.

Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group created their own singular, cinematic sound over the course of three studio albums, from their 2007 breakthrough ‘Knee-Deep in the North Sea’, and 2010 John Leckie produced ‘Isla’, to the self titled record ‘Portico Quartet’ in 2012. Now rebooted as Portico Quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group are set to release their fourth studio album Art In The Age Of Automation this August on Manchester’s forward thinking indy jazz and electronica label Gondwana Records. It’s an eagerly anticipated return, with the band teasing both a return to their mesmeric signature sound and fresh new sonic departures in their new music.