"Broadcasting From Home"
by John.
The first time i’d heard of the “Penguin Cafe Orchestra” was during the first year of my music degree course. My theory class was tasked with analysing a curious composition named “Perpetuum Mobile”. Listening to it briefly in class we were dismissed in order to get on with our work.
On my wander home, I wondered what a cafe full of penguins would actually look like. Probably a lot of flapping and fidgeting.
The minute I got home I used what funds I could muster and purchased every piece of Penguin Cafe Orchestra music available online. I was enraptured. I spent the remainder of the night listening to as much as physically possible.
Enveloped in my new found love for this enigmatic ensemble, I’d forgotten to pick up a pen and write my analysis.
I had to scribble it out on my walk to university the next day.
I vividly remember arriving at the campus that following morning to a cacophony of pianos, all stammering out the melody of “Perpetuum Mobile”.
I promptly joined in.
It was a rather wondrous morning, the usually vacant upright pianos strewn around the music department were ringing with the new discovery of the “Penguin Cafe Orchestra”.
Much to the annoyance of the other university students in the same building, this carried on for many months.
“Penguin Cafe Orchestra” is the creation of Simon Jeffes an English, classically trained guitarist. Whilst in Japan in the early 1970’s he started writing about the ‘Penguin Cafe’, an imaginary place through which he expressed his feelings. He described in his writings the soundscapes and ideologies of this place in vivid detail. On returning to England from his trip he started creating the music for the “Penguin Cafe Orchestra”. The group released five studio albums, two live albums and even a ballet with a narrative centred around various endangered species of animals.
Fun Fact: - Simon Jeffes helped notable producer Bill Price with the string arrangement for Sid Vicious’s version of “My Way”.
"Broadcasting From Home” is the groups third album, and a great place to start if you’ve never delved into the music of Simon Jeffes before. It’s hard to talk about this album and fail to mention the opening track “Music for a Found Harmonium”. After the groups first tour, whilst in Japan, Jeffes found a Harmonium in an alleyway in Kyoto, he managed to take it to a friends house. He kept it there, visiting it often, composing the aforementioned song.
I don’t think i’ve ever found anything of value lying abandoned in a street, let alone a fully functioning Harmonium. If I did, I doubt any of my friends would house it for me.
I still keep an eye out though, just incase.
Regardless of this fortuitous event, the song is phenomenal, words can hardly do it justice. A subtle masterpiece. It has been covered by countless artists and even featured in a handful of films (including… ‘Napoleon Dynamite’).
The album’s stellar track listing is a collection of curiously creative compositions. For a ‘quick listen’ I recommend the tracks “In the Back of a Taxi” with its minimalist majesty, “Sheep Dip’s” sonorous strings and “Prelude and Yodel” with its bouncy guitar part and quintessentially ‘Penguin Cafe Orchestra’ sound. Though the melodies repeat and loop, they are never trite. The sonic textures on this album are one of a kind. Like a warm hug on a winter night, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra take you to a sonic space you won’t want to leave in a hurry.
The allure of Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s album artwork has always remained to me such a curious matter. Just about everything related to the group is decorated with paintings of anthropomorphic half-human half-penguin creatures.
I even went to see the Orchestra and a giant Penguin head sculpture sat rooted to the middle of a grand piano. These creations are the work of Emily Young, a very prominent English sculptor who’s catalogue of work is incredibly prolific.
“Penguin Human Hybrids” sound quite the startling concoction, but these creatures are always depicted in very idyllic settings. They are normally engaging in what look like rather holistic activities.
On the cover of “Broadcasting from Home” in which the scene depicts a group of our hybrid friends ‘exorcising' some sort of (penguin shaped) soul from an human sized penguin. Which granted sounds sinister, yet it appears to be a rather pleasant affair.
The “Penguin Cafe” is an interesting place, a place of twist and turns, amalgams of musical cultures and ideas but the compositions never lose their quaint and curious charm. “Broadcasting From Home” is a perfect place to start exploring the music of the “Penguin Cafe Orchestra”. Hopefully you’ll feel the same as I did discovering the group… Just don’t blame me when your new found obsession causes you to endlessly scour the streets looking to adopt discarded instruments.
Other Penguin Cafe Orchestra suggestions:
“Telephone and Rubber Band” - a tape loop of an engaged telephone tone accompanied by the twanging of a rubber band. It’s magical. The landline telephone is rapidly approaching extinction which only adds to the tracks nostalgia.
“Perpetuum Mobile” - Be warned, if you have a piano near by, you may find your hands uncontrollably playing the melody on repeat.