Penguin Cafe Orchestra - classic or dud?

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ugh

^ those clips are fantastic. the albums i have (s/t and 'music from the penguin cafe') are sorta perfect, exactly the kind of airy pop-minimalism i've been craving lately. i think the only thing that kept me from fully appreciating this band was a mental association with investment banking commercials, which i will always think of when i hear this-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbCV6E0Wro

i can't really find anything about it online, but wasn't this in the background of prudential commercials or something for years? not like that's a bad thing per se, just really hard to disassociate for me.

So, I was poking around the Penguin Cafe site today to see if they are going to ever play over in the States, and I noticed there is a new album called A Matter of Life. Obviously no Simon Jeffes stuff, but apparently his son has taken over.

Has anyone heard this? Is it worthy of the name Penguin Cafe? And has anyone seen the touring group, and is that worth it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXJXe7MMMtI

I interviewed his son Simon Jeffes last month.

Basically, it's him and a bunch of mates doing his dad's music, but they've done an original album called A Matter Of Life... which is surprisingly good and fits into the canon quite well. Some of the original Orchestra still perform as a band called The Anteaters.

Penguin Cafe are announcing a new tour very soon.

Neil Coddling from Suede is in Penguin Cafe weirdly enough.

Nice interview. When I was doing more research, I was a little saddened that the new Penguin Cafe didn't actually have any original members in it. It would be nice if Arthur Jeffes just made music under another name, but his compositions sound pretty good on first listen. Thanks!

sweet! Music From The Penguin Cafe is prolly my most rewarding discovery of the year

i can't really find anything about it online, but wasn't this in the background of prudential commercials or something for years? not like that's a bad thing per se, just really hard to disassociate for me.

They've been in a lot of commercials. I know IBM used "Perpetuum Mobile" in an ad at one point, probably in the 90s.

obviously "Music for a Found Harmonium" is basically everywhere. it's practically public domain at this point

has there ever been a band name story as beautiful as this one?

In 1972 I was in the south of France. I had eaten some bad fish and was in consequence rather ill. As I lay in bed I had a strange recurring vision, there, before me, was a concrete building like a hotel or council block. I could see into the rooms, each of which was continually scanned by an electronic eye. In the rooms were people, everyone of them preoccupied. In one room a person was looking into a mirror and in another a couple were making love but lovelessly, in a third a composer was listening to music through earphones. Around him there were banks of electronic equipment. But all was silence. Like everyone in his place he had been neutralized, made grey and anonymous. The scene was for me one of ordered desolation. It was as if I were looking into a place which had no heart. Next day when I felt better, I was on the beach sunbathing and suddenly a poem popped into my head. It started out 'I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random' and it went on about how the quality of randomness, spontaneity, surprise, unexpectedness and irrationality in our lives is a very precious thing. And if you suppress that to have a nice orderly life, you kill off what's most important. Whereas in the Penguin Cafe your unconscious can just be. It's acceptable there, and that's how everybody is. There is an acceptance there that has to do with living the present with no fear in ourselves.

"Perpetuum Mobile" seems to perfectly encapsulate creative industriousness, doesn't it?

"Rubber Band" was used everywhere too.

sampled in that goddamn spacehog song

has there ever been a band name story as beautiful as this one?

― Poliopolice, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 1:13 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Probably not. Illustrated on one of their album covers BTW (which i found seriously WTF-y until i learned the backstory). Great music, in any case.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aD4DFtG7L._SS400_.jpg

'penguin cafe orchestra' and 'broadcasting from home' two of my favorite purchases of this year. the music and this thread were awesome in 2012

This band and Miles Davis are the only artists I can tolerate when I recover from a bout of tinnitus.

Is there any chance this Red Book that's coming out will be any good? PCO are one of my all-time favorites, but I'm not sure whoever's running the show (is it Simon Jeffe's son) can carry the torch.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/af/d2/57/afd257a20638f47f8d9d447a6627c4d1.jpg

I'm already underwhelmed by the album art.

I didn't know there was already an album by the reformed Penguin Cafe. I should've read this thread more closely. I'm apprehensive about listening to any of this because it seems to stick so close to someone Simon Jeffes' formula, which is an amazing thing but is it possible for someone else to come close? I mean, I love the formula; it's probably the greatest formula there ever was. I'm still searching for a group of musicians that make music that comes anywhere close to PCO's. It's transformative, imaginative, beautiful music, but it also seems like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.

I don't know if I want to listen to make-believe PCO is what I'm saying. Is the essence there??

Try North Sea Radio Orchestra!

There's also the Japanese band World Standard that has a lot of PCO-type music (with a more Caribbean feel) but their most PCO-like albums are very hard to find.

I have a World Standard + Moose Hill in my iTunes for some reason. I'm going to listen now.

i just started listening to this band! it is wonderful music!

I think the thing I love most about PCO is that when I first discovered them, I had a feeling what they'd sound like just based on the artwork and name. Is it right to say they're the kind of like the soundtrack to the most amazing dream you ever had but can't really remember?

That seems pretty fair to me.

I bought a record for $4 (Broadcasting from Home) just because I was amused by the name and artwork. One of the few times that's worked out!

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/af/d2/57/afd257a20638f47f8d9d447a6627c4d1.jpg http://www.metalkingdom.net/album/cover/d91/2268_budgie_bandolier.jpg

Yeah, I'm not at all feeling that artwork.

I'm assuming the one on the right is a Budgie album.

aye

Seems that PCO and Penguin Cafe and not exactly the same thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_cafe

I haven't heard Penguin Cafe yet.

FUCKING CLASSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS THE MUSIC GOD PLAYS IN HIS RUMPUS ROOM

Is it right to say they're the kind of like the soundtrack to the most amazing dream you ever had but can't really remember?

that's pretty close. I would have said it's the soundtrack of pure joy and creative energy... maybe like the most amazing dream you've ever had!

Have we polled these guys?

Has anyone heard the new one?

new one? how?

It's just "Penguin Cafe."

http://www.musicomh.com/reviews/albums/penguin-cafe-red-book

i'm curious about it, but somehow i feel like the boundless beauty and joyfulness of PCO cannot be recreated so easily. maybe i'm wrong.

I hear you, and I think they missed the mark with their last album. IT's definitely not vintage PCO. I still have hope that his son can carry on his legacy, however.

Is it really PCO without Jeffes

I listened to the one that came out a couple years ago recently, and it definitely didn't have the same charm as the classic records. I think it's possible that someone could potentially recapture some of the magic. It seems to me that his son gets what made PCO wonderful, but he's just not there yet. The art on this new one leaves me wanting. That's for sure.

the cover art is an affront to the PCO legacy... but then again, if they had made it in the same vein, I would also have been offended ("how dare they!").

True. AllMusic credits say it's the same artist who did the old record sleeves.

^emily young: jeffes' partner of the time and mother of the current leader, i believe (also supposedly the emily of see emily play according to wiki). not sure if they've done any recording, but there were a bunch of ex-pco people playing live shows at one time under another name after a falling out of some type with jeffes jr.

I never would have suspected such a close link from Pink Floyd to the PCO! My fab discovery of the day.....

I heard about that group, no lime tangier.

Didn't know it was a result of discord, but I wondered why there was a splinter group.

Has anyone had a listen to The Red Book yet? I plan on giving it a whirl this weekend. I'm pretty tempted to purchase it just because it is the Penguin Cafe...

I listened to the 3 tracks on Spotify. They're kind of downers.

downers because they're bad or because they're sad songs?

Sad songs.