Porij

Porij have endured the sharp pains of self-discovery. Every raw nerve, every bloody scrape and sprain, have been necessary for that unavoidable thing we must grit our teeth and bare: growing up. Vocalist and keyboardist Scout Moore (Egg), bassist James Middleton, guitarist Jacob Maguire and drummer Nathan Carroll are armed with hard-won experience, strengthened bonds and a renewed sense of passion. Their debut album Teething is both a coming-of-age story and a bottling of the particular magic that is unmistakably – and definitively – Porij.

Rather than floating just beyond our reach on a digital cloud, Porij are a real band anchored to tangible sound. Following the success of their debut mixtape Breakfast in 2020, the band had awoken an appetite for something we didn’t realise we were so hungry for: a collision of between the worlds of indie-rock and dance music, weaving together the organic with the electronic to create something at once tender and transcendent.

The band’s original line-up met while attending The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. It was there that these four artists from disparate corners of England and influence would converge: Eggy, the band’s vocalist, grew up being enveloped in the 2010 SoundCloud boom while bassist James Middleton rinsed bassline and jump-up bangers in his mate’s garage. It speaks to their chameleonic nature that their first show together would be, of all places, at a jazz club.

Alongside intensively honing their technical instrumental skills and immersing themselves in the city’s live circuit, they tapped into the pulse of Manchester’s house club nights and house parties which sparked their love affair with dance genres. They fell, head over heels, for floor-filling sounds from UK garage to drum’n’bass and deep house. Generous helpings of this lineage are stirred into Porij’s distinct flavour.