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Various Artists - Music from the Penguin Cafe [digipak] (CD, Reis Rmst)
Loot Price: R118
Discovery Miles 1 180
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Various Artists - Music from the Penguin Cafe [digipak] (CD, Reis Rmst)
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Loot Price R118
Discovery Miles 1 180
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Pegging Penguin Cafe Orchestra's sound has always proved
problematic; imagine Cluster's toy melodies channeled through the
Bonzo Dog Band with a hint of the Art Bears' high-mindedness, and
you've at least got a point of reference. The brainchild of
multi-instrumentalist Simon Jeffes, Penguin Cafe's debut was
released under the imprimatur of executive producer Brian Eno, who
had taken the onus of bringing like-minded minimalists (Harold
Budd, Cluster, Jon Hassell) to light. But where the work of those
artists demanded to be taken seriously, Jeffes and company almost
defy you to take their music seriously. "Penguin Cafe Single" and
"In a Sydney Motel" are playful pieces constructed to sound
nonmusical, aided by Jeffes' eclectic instrumentation (e.g., the
ukelele), which effectively undermines the serious sounds of cello
and violin. It's not all light fare; "Surface Tension" sounds like
Eno at his most morose and "Coronation" could have come from the
ice queen herself, Nico. If there's a knock on Music From the
Penguin Cafe (and from the vantage point of their second album,
there is), it's that Jeffes merely teases listeners with his charm.
On the second side (for CD owners, that's the last three songs),
the Penguin Cafe Orchestra traverse artier terrain, with little of
their original humor (although "Chartered Flight" does reuse themes
from the first side in an effort to come across warmly). As a
result, Music From the Penguin Cafe tugs from two very different
directions: the avant-garde and the innocent. Listeners are trained
to save room for the sweet stuff at the end; by placing it at the
beginning, most listeners won't have the appetite for the heavy
courses that follow. Mind you, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra are no
laughing matter, but heavy artists abound, and musicians with a
sense of humor about their art are cherished oddities. Music From
the Penguin Cafe shows restraint, their eponymous second album is
pure indulgence; reward yourself with their second album first and
purchase their first album second. Note that, like Harold Budd's
debut, this material was recorded in part in 1974 (with roughly
half of the material dating from 1976), but the span in time has
little bearing on the sound of the music. ~ Dave Connolly
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Disk 1
1 |
Penguin Cafe Single |
2 |
From the Colonies |
3 |
In A Sydney Motel |
4 |
Surface Tension |
5 |
Milk |
6 |
Coronation |
7 |
Giles Farnaby's Dream |
8 |
Pigtail |
9 |
The Sound Of Someone You Love Who's Going Away And It Doesn't Matter |
10 |
Hugebaby |
11 |
Chartered Flight |
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