Music From the Penguin Cafe

I don't think I recognize this artist or any of these tracks by title. So I'm basically going into this blind.

After a rather superficial reading of the Wikipedia page and top reviews on this site, I was expecting to hate this. But I'm quite enjoying it. It feels really ahead of its time. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed this was produced 30 years after its actual release date. This is both bizarre and great. I'm adding this to my list of albums to listen to again.

Orpheus Listening Challenge 2023: #3 A chamber music album (12th album)

I hesitated whether to choose this album, because technically it is not chamber music, but some combination of jazz, classical, and ambient music, and only at the end chamber music. Anyway, I'm very glad that I chose this particular album. The entire album is amazing, but what I truly love about it can be summed up in two compositions.

Zopf is divided into several parts, so it can be characterized as the first larger and more grandiose composition here with a lot of influence. "From The Colonies" has a krautrock feel, "In a Sidney Motel" skillfully uses vocal performances to create a soothing folk atmosphere, "Surface Tension", as the name suggests, initially creates a tense atmosphere with synth manipulation, but gradually returns to that minimalistic lulling, and "Milk" then appears with experimental avant-folk. "Coronation" is perhaps the most boring part of the whole composition, but it continues beautifully on "Giles Farnaby's Dream" which adds... classical music with calypso inspiration? That's what I'm talking about! Listening, you never know how the next composition will blow your mind, but they all perfectly hit all the notes and all the feelings on any of them without becoming too ambitious for their own good.

The second composition I want to touch on is "The Sound of Someone You Love Who's Going Away and It Doesn't Matter". At first, it looks very, very pretentious, but it really isn't. It lives up to the name. Without giving much away, the composition is centered around one chord passage that repeats itself, lulling you to sleep, gradually being suppressed by the violin, keyboards, and other wacky instruments, creating a heavy and tense atmosphere, only to later return again, like that love that is difficult to keep on living without.

Amazing musical achievement! Peaceful, yet thought-provoking. At times angry and confused, yet absolutely soothing. Recommended!

ovo je jedan naprosto divan album od kojeg mi se još uvijek sliježu dojmovi. kao najbolja numera nameće se »the sound of someone you love who's going away and it doesn't matter« (inače super naslov! čiji završetak tumačim kao eliptičan), ali ni ostale nisu kvalitetom zaostajale. htio bih još jednom preslušati kako bih napisao sređenije dojmove i donio konačan sud.

preslušao još jednom, nemam što nadodati, osim da zaslužuje peticu. divota!

[odslušao i napisao 2/11/26]

Listened before? No

Familiar with the artist? No

Thoughts:
- This is definitely not for me . . . It's weird, but not weird enough to make it interesting.
- I was surprised when track 3 suddenly had lyrics... Expected the whole thing would be instrumental.
- There are parts of songs that I thought were cool, and I actually enjoyed "The Sound of Someone You Love . . ." despite being 12 minutes long, but I didn't need to hear this before I die.

What even is this? I've never heard of it. It is essentially orchestral prog rock that is primarily instrumental. It was OK, but much of it failed to leave a lasting impression on me. I have no idea what it's doing on the list. I zoned out of the Zopf suite after the first two tracks of it, and didn't come back in until the end of the album. What about this is essential?

Avant-garde and experimental and bordering on ambient at times. I think I'd like to visit this Penguin Cafe.

After the first track, I didn’t expect there to be any vocals, but track 3 upended that thought. “The Sound Of Someone You Love Who’s Going Away And It Doesn’t Matter” feels like the crown jewel of the record and worth coming back to when you have an extra 12 minutes.
Overall, it’s a strange record that goes pretty much every direction possible and, I’m sure, loses most of the popular audience in the process. Certainly one I’ll need to sit with again.

What a goofy little album cover. Some of it was nice (but basic) instrumental music, some of it was very experimental (zopf). Overall, ok. 3*, the average of the nice tracks and the too-experimental-for-me tracks.

Very bizarre but I'm here for it

I can do without the tracks with vocals. But much of the rest of it is absolutely lovely.

At first it seemed like there wasn't going to be much to chew on, but it develops in a nice way. I'd put it in a picture frame and hang it on the wall.

This wasn't as good as the other penguin cafe album but it was still pretty fun. I can't quite go to four with it....kinda want to though.

I didn't hate this, but never want to listen to it again.

My parents are pretty big fans of Penguin Cafe Orchestra so I grew up listening to them a lot. Hadn't heard some of this before and I really loved it.

Okay now this is the shit I wanted from this project, loved it, will be listening again

This was a very pleasant listen that was perhaps just a little lacking in substance for my tastes. I've always been a big fan of music that fuses the techniques and instrumentation of classical, folk and pop music, so right from the first track I was drawn in by the eclectic mix of instruments on show. That theme continued throughout the whole record, so I certainly can't fault the inventiveness there; it was interesting (mostly) from start to finish.

The reason why I don't quite feel this album warrants a 5 is because, while there are a lot of beautiful musical ideas here, they're interspersed with, in my view, instances of aimless auditory rambling that can be common with avant-garde/jazz stuff. Which isn't to say that stuff has no value or anything, it's just not as interesting to me as tracks like, for instance, The Sound of Someone You Love Who's Going Away And It Doesn't Matter and its melancholic exploration of loss and acceptance, which I find a lot more engaging on an emotional level. Maybe that's superficial of me, but oh well.

Favourite Tracks: Penguin Cafe Signal, In a Sydney Motel, Chartered Flight, The Sound of Someone You Love[...]

I'm at a 5.

Brian Eno made “Ambient 1: Music for Airports”. You can tell it’s ambient music that’s made for airports because that’s the title of the album. This is titled “Music From The Penguin Cafe”. I know the Penguin Cafe Orchestra composed these tracks. I have no idea what the hell a Penguin Cafe is. Does that ruin my enjoyment of the album for lack of a concrete vision throughout? No, not really. Would it have helped to have had one? Yeah, sure, but I think this album thrives on being unexplainable at a broader level. The titles of each track are practically all you get, and while some are more obvious than others (you know which one I mean), sometimes you get a track like “Pigtail” or “Hugebaby” that feels like nothing like what you’d expect. I think that’s a good thing.

If you need that bigger concrete vision to get something more out of this in a more fulfilling way, I guess I understand the ceiling being a 3 here. I just don’t think it owes you that vision. Look at that cover again. That’s a real penguin next to a half-naked man dressed as a penguin, under an umbrella, with a palm tree to its right next to a sea of green hills & mountains. Nothing makes any sense about it, and nothing in the album bothers to explain it, or even allude to it. It is what it is, and you are meant to interpret it however you wish. That’s the album. Take it or leave it. I happened to take it quite well; I think it’s excellently performed & captivating throughout with the push & pull of each track, especially in the mixed violin & synth work.

Ultimately, it is an album that you’re just meant to listen to. The oddest track here is “In A Sydney Motel”, obviously for having some totally unfitting lines about suicide, but it still has a place here, I think. It’s one of those tracks you take or leave. If you leave more than you take, I get it. It’s a bit atonal at times & despite Brian Eno’s executive production, there’s an underlying tension to the album that never really feels resolved. If you take more than you leave, you’ll probably appreciate that tension as something to elevate the senses & immerse yourself more in the progression of each track as a tool for storytelling. That immersion is what’s got me at a pretty clearcut 5. I enjoyed it a lot. I’m glad it’s on the list.

Neither that strange nor that unaccountable, Music From the Penguin Cafe is a fresh sort of record: pop avant-gardism at its finest. In his far weirder collection of stories The Encantadas; or, Enchanted Isles, Herman Melville has this to say about the penguin: 'Though dabbling in all three elements, and indeed possessing some rudimental claims to all, the penguin is at home in none. On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops.' These penguins, however, are at home in at least three elements: Philip Glassian repetition, Enoish experimentalism, & British folk à la Fairport Convention. A little cold & intellectual at times, yes, but this is also proof that you could incorporate classical music into pop & rock w/o being a prog snob, i.e., ELP.

I love weird, whacky, whimsical shit.

4/5

When it started, I hated it. Just loathed the fact that I had to listen to it. But it grew on me as it went on. I wouldn’t put it on Intentionally, but it’s not a bad change of pace.