Nick Mulvey performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2011 as the percussionist of British jazz band Portico Quartet. Despite Portico Quartet‘s success – their debut album
Knee-deep In The North Sea was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2008 – Mulvey decided to leave the band and go solo as a singer-songwriter. He took all the time he needed to write his songs and, in the interim, toured with rising stars like Laura Marling, Laura Mvula and Lianne La Havas, for whom he was the support act. In Portico Quartet, Mulvey played the Hang, a relatively new Swiss percussion instrument with a deep, echoing sound. As a singer-songwriter, he shows that he is a gifted singer and guitarist as well. Mulvey’s shift from jazz to pop is not a radical departure: on the guitar he produces the same refined, hypnotic groove as he used to on the Hang. Mulvey’s first solo album
First Mind was released this year.
