Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Penguin Cafe Orchestra
After many years of not listening to them, I’ve become enthralled again by the magic of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It wasn’t that I
wanted to stop listening to them, but I was introduced to them by my ex-boyfriend in the mid-90s, and when we parted, I was left Penguin Cafe-less as well as boyfriend-less. Having said that, I’m not sure why it took me so long to acquire their albums again, because theirs is a very joyful and life-affirming kind of music. Much of the music I listen to is very difficult to classify (which is part of the reason I like it, I suppose), but the Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) really defies being pigeon-holed. It is somehow instantly recognisable, and wholly characteristic of PCO. Perhaps it’s best to let the founder and proprietor of the Penguin Cafe explain it himself. Sadly, he died of an inoperable brain tumour in 1997, but in his obituary
here, I found a quote of his which sums up PCO for me:
“Ideally I suppose it is the sort of music you want to hear, music that will lift your spirit. It is the sort of music played by imagined wild, free mountain people creating sounds of a subtle dream-like quality. It is cafe music, but cafe in the sense of a place where people’s spirits communicate and mingle, a place where music is played but often touches the heart of the listener”.
{Read more...}
