Sleeping on Mars

UPDATE (20 Aug 2015): What made the comet sing? Scientists working on Rosetta's RPC instrument have found out why 67P/C-G was singing. Via http://wp.me/p46DHN-1nN
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ORIGINAL Citation (Oct 2014): Rosetta’s Plasma Consortium (RPC) has uncovered a mysterious ‘song’ that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is singing into space. The comet seems to be emitting a ‘song’ in the form of oscillations in the magnetic field in the comet’s environment. It is being sung at 40-50 millihertz, far below human hearing, which typically picks up sound between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. To make the music audible to the human ear, the frequencies have been increased in this recording. This sonification of the RPC-Mag data was compiled by German composer Manuel Senfft (www.tagirijus.de).  Read full details in ESA's Rosetta blog: http://wp.me/p46DHN-Li 

Copyright Notice

Original Data Credit: ESA/Rosetta/RPC/RPC-MAG
Sonification: TU Braunschweig/IGEP/Manuel Senfft, CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Thumbnail image credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

A Singing Comet

Blurstem’s 'Remnants and Whispers' is an album of memory-of echoes and fragments, of moments gathered and reshaped, of the past carried gently into the present. Released on Fluid Audio, renowned for its exquisitely crafted physical editions, this collection of soundscapes and textures is imbued with nostalgia, intimacy, and the quiet weight of time.

The album weaves together the delicate and the vast, the small and the sweeping. Tiny, almost imperceptible guitar plucks flicker like candlelight amidst expansive ambient washes. The sonic palette moves seamlessly between lo-fi warmth and pristine clarity, embracing the imperfections of cassette recording and the wobbly, warbled charm of home videos from a lost era. Each track breathes with a human touch-organic instruments processed and reimagined, from tremolo strings pitched and resampled on “Tethered” to layers of sound that feel like old photographs brought to life.

At its heart, 'Remnants and Whispers' explores the idea of remnants-what we carry with us through life, the fragments of friendships, memories, and fleeting moments that shape who we are. Much like the album’s sonic construction-built from past sketches, ideas, and textures revived and given new form-the music mirrors the way we collect and reinterpret our own experiences over time.

This ethos extends beyond the music itself into its physical presentation, with Fluid Audio’s deluxe edition incorporating 1920s sheet music and book fragments as old as the 1890s-historical relics that feel like the perfect visual counterpart to the album’s themes of memory, loss, and renewal. The tactile nature of these artifacts deepens the listening experience, making 'Remnants and Whispers' not just an album, but a tangible connection to the past.

Mastered on Bartels’ late ’60s analog tape machine, the album’s final touch further enhances its warmth and character, adding an unmistakable depth and timeless quality to its sonic palette.

A meditation on change, nostalgia, and the beauty of imperfection, Remnants and Whispers is an invitation to pause, reflect, and listen-not just to the music, but to the quiet echoes of our own stories.

Music: Blurstem
Mastering: Bartels
Design: Crossley

www.fluidaudio.co.uk
www.blurstem.bandcamp.com

Blurstem - Along the Rails

Passive Aggressive

Photo With Grey Sky, White Clouds

Order 'Union Cafe' on LP/CD/DL: phonofile.link/union-cafe

Erased Tapes has the huge privilege of reissuing the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s last ever studio album Union Cafe including a first time vinyl edition — out now to coincide with the 20th Anniversary of founder Simon Jeffes’ passing in 1997.

It was 1972 in the South of France when Simon had an unfortunate experience with food poisoning which lead to a much more fortunate circumstance when a vivid dream, induced from his illness and depicting a dystopian future, conceived the Penguin Cafe; a charming place where solace, harmony, and the orchestra’s unique music could be found amidst brutal concrete structures and darkness. For the following 25 years, Simon carried out this vision bringing brightness into a world full of noise. Sadly, after his passing, the original orchestra disbanded, but the doors to this happy place reopened when his son Arthur decided to continue his father’s legacy under the name Penguin Cafe.

The continuation of the PCO began at London’s Union Chapel in 2007 when Arthur and the original musicians commemorated Simon 10 years after his death. Another 10 years forward, 2017 will see Penguin Cafe pay tribute to him once again at the Union Chapel on December 11th where they will perform Union Cafe in full – a union from all corners of this magical world.

Union Cafe was the fifth, and the last studio album by Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It was initially released in 1993 merely on cassette and CD, and will now be given a new breath of life, for the first time available on vinyl, and another chance to reach old and new fans alike.

“Union Cafe was the last studio album recorded by the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra and marked a move towards a definitive English pastoral sound combined with larger string arrangements set against longer solo piano pieces. With this last album they got even closer to the PCO idea of squaring the circle of intellectually challenging modern music that is still actually beautiful. For me this has always been a contender as my favourite PCO album, and the fact that it never ended up on vinyl was more to do with the way things were in the early 90s, and chance rather than it being deliberate. So in that sense this release is righting an old wrong. The slow development of the pieces means that you can really get lost in them and vinyl is of course the perfect way to do that.” — Arthur Jeffes

Arthur very kindly gave access to the original Union Cafe painting that currently lives in his North London home studio, created by Arthur’s mother Emily Young and now photographed by Alex Kozobolis for this special reissue edition.

Union Cafe

Buy 2LP/CD/DL

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Kora Kora

Erased Tapes rounds off a jubilant year of tenth anniversary celebrations with a very special release, 1+1=X, a set of exclusive music from every artist on the label. Featuring never before heard tracks from Nils Frahm, Kiasmos and A Winged Victory For The Sullen, 1+1=X sees Erased Tapes artists come together to make an album as a collective. Sharing the same space, instruments and each others’ capabilities during a residency at Vox-Ton studio in Berlin, they recorded 20 songs to mark the label's 10-year history. The 3-LP box set, produced by label curator Robert Raths, is released on Record Store Day, April 21st 2018.

“I suppose finding words and meaning to describe this release would be next to impossible. It was a real joy to go back to our humble beginnings, to have the freedom to create art only for ourselves was truly sublime” — Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie of A Winged Victory For The Sullen

“It was important to create something communal and reflective of our time, to capture something of value using traditional recording techniques, experimenting and reacting to each other in real time, sharing the same space,” says Raths.

Between August 2016 and 2017, each artist arrived with a new composition or an improvisation to record at Vox-Ton. Run with much love and care by Italian engineer Francesco Donadello – who has worked on many Erased Tapes recordings before including A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Michael Price and Lubomyr Melnyk – it is one of the few studios left where it’s still possible to record fully analogue, isolated from the city noise and in a room that can fit a large ensemble. Reflective of the communal spirit, 1+1=X is the result of an ambitious undertaking; to create a singular record as a collective, not just a compilation of songs, that celebrates the benefits of community over individuality and improvisation over rigorous planning.

“As much as Erased Tapes probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the digital age, we should also remind ourselves of what we are capable of without it,” adds Raths. “1+1=X is a testament of what can be achieved when we work together as a collective, which is more than the sum of what we can achieve as individuals.”

The majority of songs on this album feature contributions from multiple performers. It is also no coincidence that the album opens with ‘Brutal Moderna’ by Qasim Naqvi (Dawn of Midi) and A Winged Victory For The Sullen’s ‘Long May It Sustain’, which were both recorded on the day the U.S. election results came in.

“Qasim asked me to read the news headlines with a stutter over the top of his piece. It was an oddly beautiful experience which brought all of us together on a day when spirits were otherwise a bit low,” says Peter Broderick. “I thought this residency was a wonderful idea. In fact I would have loved to be there for more of it. I made some amazing new friends, some stronger bonds with old friends and some wonderful pieces of music that I’m honoured to be a part of. Robert has often described Erased Tapes as a family, and perhaps above all else this was just his earnest effort to bring the family together. I hope we’ll have some reunions in years to come!”

Designed in collaboration with Torsten Posselt at FELD, the 3-LP set is accompanied by a book of photographs documenting the recording process. It is housed in a bespoke, hand-assembled white box — with a recessed X — that slides open to one side, and is limited to 1000 copies worldwide.

1+1=X

Long May It Sustain

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A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Long May It Sustain

Fanu remix of The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble's "XTabay".
A part of a 5-track EP that was released on Oct 10 to celebrate TKDE's new tour.
Grab the whole EP at http://shop.tkde.net/album/xtabay

BUY! It's cheapo!

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble: "XTabay" (Fanu remix)

Everything Ends Here - blindoldfreak

Erased Tapes present 'Handfuls of Night' — the highly anticipated follow-up to Penguin Cafe’s much applauded 2017 album 'The Imperfect Sea' — inspired by the Antarctic, Arthur Jeffes’ journey following in Scott’s footsteps and our penguin friends that reside there.

Using gut-stringed violins, viola, cello, bass, percussion, upright and grand pianos, synthesiser, harmonium and more, Arthur Jeffes and his cohorts have crafted a vivid series of panoramic sonic landscapes, that are as rich in cerebral poignancy as they are in emotional depth.

Handfuls of Night began life after Greenpeace commissioned Jeffes to write four pieces of music corresponding to four breeds of penguins, to help raise awareness for the endangered Antarctic seas . A fundraising evening at EartH in Hackney followed, where Penguin Cafe premiered the four songs named after their feathered counterparts to a sold out audience; the rousing contemporary folk inflected ‘Chinstrap’, the mournful and minimalistic ‘Adelie’, stoic and rhythmic ‘The Life of an Emperor’ and the wistful, string-laden ‘Gentoo Origin’.

“This record started with a core of pieces I wrote specifically about penguins in the Antarctic for a project with Greenpeace in autumn 2018. There are four native Antarctic penguin species – each with their own individual characteristics and natures. I carried on from there to envisage a whole anthropomorphised world, where these penguins had narratives and adventures that we soundtracked”, says Jeffes. But both the album and Penguin Cafe as a project have origins that reach further back:

“In 2005 I was asked to join an expedition re-creating Scott’s last Antarctic trip in 1911 for the BBC, using the same Edwardian equipment. I’m no explorer but I was keen, especially as there’s a family link – Scott was married to my great grandmother before she married my great grandfather. 

Antarctica by this stage being a protected environment, we swapped to the Arctic circle where we spent 3 months on the Greenland ice sheet, first dog-sledding and then man-hauling just short of 1000 km at 10,000 feet, across ice fields and glaciers. 

I had lots of time to ponder my life back home. It was then that I decided to get my Master of Music degree and focus on composing music, and also then that I realised that even in the most remote silent places, music can still be a huge part of one’s internal world and imagination.  Whilst on the expedition. I spent days playing things back in my head and also writing new things, which I would then try and write down at the end of the day.”

Handfuls of Night’s tones, textures and melodies evoke otherworldly expanses, which at different junctures are either foreboding, awe inspiring or peaceful. There’s subtly morphing rhythmic repetition throughout, somewhere between minimalism, krautrock and the piano-cascades of label peer Lubomyr Melnyk. Jeffes creates a kinetic, circling motion, which drives the album forward in the form of a musical trip that mirrors the physical journey it was inspired by.

Penguin Cafe was founded by Arthur Jeffes in 2009, after bringing together a talented and disparate group of musicians including members of Suede and Gorillaz, to perform his father Simon Jeffes’ legacy of world-renowned Penguin Cafe Orchestra music, ten years after his untimely death in 1997. A full biography is available here.
Handfuls of Night is out this autumn amid a string of UK live dates, before taking the album on a worldwide tour in 2020 with more dates to be announced.

· pre-order 'Handfuls of Sound' on LP/CD/DL: https://idol.lnk.to/HandfulsofNight

Handfuls of Night

At the Top of the Hill, They Stood...

Buy LP/CD/DL

Penguin Cafe - At the Top of the Hill, They Stood...

The first album from the latest installment of the Penguin Cafe with Simon Jeffes' son, Arthur. Limited print-run.

“Penguin Cafe continues to occupy a unique place in music: nothing else has ever sounded quite like it. Eccentric, charming, accommodating, surprising, seductive, warm, reliable, modest and unforgettable: it's a true friend” ∼ Brian Eno, February 2010

The Penguin Cafe Orchestra were a uniquely innovative, exploratory set of musicians who enjoyed a cherished period from 1972 to 1997, and continue to hold a special place in many hearts. Their inception was as original, imaginative and idiosyncratic as the music they created…

During the summer of 1972 the English composer Simon Jeffes had a dream, experienced during a severe bout of food poisoning in the South of France
"I was laying in bed delirious, sort of hallucinating for about 24 hours. I had this one vision in my mind of a place that was like a modern hotel, with all these rooms made of concrete. There was an electronic eye which scanned everything. In one room you had a couple that were making love, but lovelessly. In another room there was somebody just looking at himself in the mirror, just obsessed with himself. In another room there was a musician with a bank of synthesizers, wearing headphones, and there was no sound.
This was a very terrible, bleak place. Everybody was taken up with self-interested activity which kept them looped in on themselves. It wasn't like they were prisoners, they were all active, but only within themselves. And that kept them from being a problem or a threat to the cold order represented by the eye.
Next day when I felt better, I went to the beach. As I sat there a poem came to me. It began ‘I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe. I will tell you things at random.’”
The music of the Penguin Cafe, Simon broadly regarded as "a very big yes to the survival of the heart in a time when the heart is under attack from the forces of coldness, darkness and repression." When forced to describe it more precisely, he called his music "imaginary folklore" and "modern semi-acoustic chamber music." He very much liked the comment of a Japanese girl who attended a Penguin concert in Japan and who said afterwards that the music sounded strange, because it was as if she'd heard it a long time ago.

To realize this somewhat fevered dream, Simon utilized many different instruments and orchestrations including elements of African, Venezuelan, Brazilian, Classical & Minimalist music, using a variety of instruments from strings, pianos, harmoniums, slide guitars, cuatros, kalimbas, experimental sound loops, mathematical notations and more.

The last official Penguin Cafe Orchestra release was Concert Program recorded 1995, a document of the touring set they were playing at the time...

Sadly in 1997 Jeffes passed away, marking the closure of that period of Penguin Cafe’s history. However, in 2007, to mark ten years since Simon's death, his son Arthur Jeffes, re-assembled the original musicians to perform a last run of concerts, spanning three nights at London’s Union Chapel, in tribute to both his father and the music that he created. The reception to these concerts was an affirmation that the music held a vibrant life of its own and subsequently Arthur felt that it was appropriate to embark on a more extensive revisiting….

Commissioning a fresh set of musicians ranging from luminaries from The Royal College of Music to notable performers and members from bands such as Suede, Gorillaz, Delakota and Razorlight, the newly envisioned incarnation of the Penguin Cafe undertook a series of performances under the name Music from the Penguin Cafe.

The first of these would be invitation from The Teenage Cancer Trust to perform at The Royal Albert Hall, to be filmed for a future charitable release.

Following this, over the next six months, Music from The Penguin Cafe appeared at various festivals, venues and Arts events over the summer of 2009, initiated by a debut at The Manchester Royal College of Music. This was to be followed by appearances at Port Eliot Literary Festival, Glastonbury, Bestival, The Big Chill, Womad, Edinburgh Arts Festival, the Snape Proms, and the arts festivals of Galway and Milan. Each performance was met with glowing receptions, and heart-warming reviews.

It was during this period that Arthur Jeffes had also began to incorporate his own new material, universally received as natural yet inspired extensions to his own father’s work, thus marking the beginning of a new episode in the Penguin Cafe's rich and turbulent history...

By the end of this run the band was newly invigorated, and the music now seasoned into a fresh, confident and redefined style. With this in mind, it was then decided to bolster the Royal Albert Hall filmed footage with a live studio recording of the set performed over the summer shows. These recordings book-ended this first chapter in the new band's history, mirroring the last record made by the original Penguin Cafe band.

On the 9th day, of the 9th month of 2009, at 9.00am, these 9 musicians walked in to Air Edel Studios and over the next 9 hours recorded 21 tracks live. So much for numerology….

The CD of tracks recorded that day have now been coupled with a DVD of the filmed recitals from The Royal Albert Hall, to be released as a single package under the title 'Music From The Penguin Cafe - Live at the Royal Albert Hall', with all proceeds from this release are going to The Teenage Cancer Trust.

Moreover as everyone involved in this project generously donated their time and talents for free, from performing, filming, editing, recording, mixing, artwork, mastering and manufacturing, when you pay £10 (plus vat, sadly) for the album, Teenage Cancer Trust receives £10.

ARTHUR JEFFES “We're immensely proud of the music on this record, the performances therein, and being able to donate it all to Teenage Cancer Trust. This whole process has proved to be the first steps on this new journey for the Penguin Cafe and 2010 will see both a new album and tour.”

Inspired by the both the process & reception of this endeavor and the events of the previous summer, it would seem that the doors to the Penguin Cafe have opened once more.

Perpetuum Mobile

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