Penguin Cafe - The Imperfect Sea

[Mascodagama]

I've been living with new album from Arthur Jeffes and co. for about a week now. I think it's going to be one of my favourites of the year, and may well appeal to some who did not get on with the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra.



From their web site:

Predominantly self-composed, the new album also features covers of electronic works by Simian Mobile Disco and Kraftwerk, along with a re-working of Simon’s Now Nothing. Arthur has developed from the traditional folk and jazz heritage Penguin Cafe Orchestra is known for into another realm of blissful ambience and dance music, recreated using strictly acoustic elements.

“For this album I wanted to effect a departure from where we’d been up to now. The idea was to create a musical world that would feel familiar to an audience more used to dance records but stay true to our own values. So we replaced electronic layers with real instruments: pads with real string sections, synths with heavily-effected pianos, and atmospheric analogue drones with real feedback loops ringing through a stone and a piano soundboard.”

I wouldn't overstress how much this sounds like a dance record (it really doesn't), but it works for me and certainly has "chillout" qualities, as we used to say in the nineties.

[rcarlberg]

Thanks for the shout out. I'd missed that it was out now.

[walt]

I dig.Thanks for sharing.

[Steve F.]

Sounds nice! Sounds like them!

[battema]

First time listening...good stuff

[NogbadTheBad]

On my list of stuff to buy soon.

[nosebone]

Nice!

[miamiscot]

Pitchfork reviewed it this morning. They gave it a 6.6. But what do they know?

[Mascodagama]

^ Quite a thoughtful review, though I disagree with much of it.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/...imperfect-sea/

[rcarlberg]

... may well appeal to some who did not get on with the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

Sounds nice! Sounds like them!

As someone who "got on" great with the original PCO I was a little hesitant at how well Arthur would channel his late father. Simon Jeffes was nothing if not unpredictable.

I find the new Penguin Cafe has a lot of similarities, even though they are not identical. The new ensemble is a bit more New Agey (in a PCO way) with perhaps less outlandish instrumentation choices. Still, their four albums since Simon's passing -- Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2009), A Matter of Life... (2011), The Red Book (2014) and now The Imperfect Sea (2017) -- all continue the PCO charm and are welcome balm to those of us who miss Simon terribly.

[FrippWire]

And for anyone who cares, PCO has a new one coming on 6/16 entitled "Umbrella". It's a collab with Japanese artist Cornelius. As a massive fan of both, I cannot wait to hear this!

[Scrotum Scissor]

Great to see that they're still around, but I honestly never heard anything by them which could even come close to touching that 2nd. album of theirs. I saw a string quartet many years ago perform parts of that record, and it struck me as perfectly convertible "post-modernist chamber ambient" - Yeah, corny, I know. Yet for some reason I never had the same positive reaction to their erstwhile output.

I had the same experience with three other 'non-RIO' electrouacoustic 'chamber rock' ensembles, namely Flairck, Gatto Marte and Rachel's; one grand album experience (their first ones, respectively), and then no more for me. Perhaps I just give up too easily on this sort of stuff. I never found the time to dwell much into Aranis, Cro Magnon or DAAU either except for the odd albums I bought from them initially.

[Spiral]

As someone who "got on" great with the original PCO I was a little hesitant at how well Arthur would channel his late father. Simon Jeffes was nothing if not unpredictable.

I find the new Penguin Cafe has a lot of similarities, even though they are not identical. ... all continue the PCO charm and are welcome balm to those of us who miss Simon terribly.

Yeah, well said. As the reviewer at AAJ put it, whimsy is a tricky thing to really get right, and the PC has less than the PCO. If Arthur doesn't have the same innate sense for playfulness, it's just as well he doesn't force that element but finds his own angle.

The current offshoot's work sometimes reminds me of Union Cafe, in that it was the Orchestra's most 'serious' album in tone. It's not my favorite, but very well-done for what it is, and those first four albums have such a one-of-a-kind magic that they deserve to stand alone anyway.