Lightbox

Spiro are the most exciting quartet you’re likely to hear. Their unique brand of music is sweeping, majestic and cinematic – essentially English, beautifully brilliant.

They might bear the tools of the folk musician and be partial to the odd traditional tune, but Spiro claim to have closer affinities to the worlds of contemporary classical and dance music than they do to the folk scene.

This four-piece contemporary ensemble takes a meticulous approach to composition and performance, creating a sound much greater than their parts (accordion, mandolin, acoustic guitar and violin) would suggest. Their music – as heard on Lightbox, their new album for Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records – is sweeping, majestic and cinematic, marking them out as kindred spirits with Steve Reich, Michael Nyman and the Penguin Café Orchestra. It’s a unified but never uniform sound, one made by four virtuosic musicians pulling in the same direction and keen to provoke an emotional response in anyone within earshot. “We’re like a string quartet,” they explain, “but the most driving and exciting string quartet that you could imagine.”

Tracks: he Darkling Plains / A Small Light In The Far West / The White Hart / Antrobus /  Shaft / I Fear You Just As I Fear Ghosts / Pop / Level 2 Small Bats / The Radio Sky / Glittering City / Underland / Altrincham Round / Captain Say Catastrophe / Binatone / The Lost Heart / Wolves / Mr. Keys