Autumn 2017

From the album, 'Public Flowers,' out now on Second Language Music  : http://www.secondlanguagemusic.com/


Robin Saville - In Konik Mokkin

That, Not That

Excited to share my newest collaboration featuring Shigeto (electronics), Jonathan Maron (bass) and Mark Guiliana (drums). They brought so much of themselves to this project. Available 6/23 on Greenleaf Music.

TOUR DATES
April 20 - WROCLAW/Poland
Impart Art Center/Centrum Sztuki Impart

April 21 - PARIS/France
New Morning

April 23 - PRAGUE/Czech Republic
Jazz Dock

April 24 - KRAKOW/Poland
Radio Krakow

April 25 - GETXO/Spain
Escuela de Música Andrés Isasi de Las Arenas

April 26 - SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA/Spain
Teatro Principal de Santiago de Compostela

April 27 - MADRID/Spain
Teatro Lara

April 28 - MIDDELBURG/Netherlands
Schuttershofcafe

April 29 - KÖLN/Germany
Stadtgarten

April 30 - MONTPELLIER/France
Maison pour tous Voltaire

June 25 – Rochester, NY
Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival

June 26 – Ottawa, Canada
TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival

June 30 – Montreal, Canada
Montreal Jazz Festival

July 1 – 2 – Chicago, IL
Constellation

July 3 – Iowa City, IA
Iowa City Jazz Festival

Dave Douglas & HIGH RISK Ft. Shigeto "Cardinals"

Released in March 2020 The Boy From Agria Volos was written as a tribute to Vangelis.  The track is influenced by his style of writing, rich in melody with surprisingly simple chords and structure.  The track features on the 2020 album Earth Follower.

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Earth Follower

The Boy From Agria Volos

The Boy From Agria Volos | Richard Anthony Bean

A detour through South African M’qanga Music. The title 'Hararé' refers to the capital of Zimbabwe, where nearly 40 years ago, Paul Simon gave a memorable concert with the group Lady Black Mambazo, Myriam Makeba, and Hugh Masekela. The concert concluded with the South African anthem Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, calling for the liberation of Nelson Mandela.

Un détour par le M'qanga sud-africain. Le titre 'Hararé' fait référence à la capitale du Zimbabwe, où il y a près de 40 ans, Paul Simon a donné un concert mémorable avec le groupe Lady Black Mambazo, Myriam Makeba et Hugh Masekela. Le concert s'est terminé par l'hymne sud-africain Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, appelant à la libération de Nelson Mandela.

Un desvío por el M'qanga sudafricano. El título 'Hararé' hace referencia a la capital de Zimbabue, donde hace casi 40 años, Paul Simon dio un concierto memorable con el grupo Lady Black Mambazo, Myriam Makeba y Hugh Masekela. El concierto concluyó con el himno sudafricano Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, pidiendo la liberación de Nelson Mandela.

Hararé

12" Edition of Screws Rework album from Nils Frahm. I did a remix from the song "Mi", more infos here : reworked.nilsfrahm.com/

Nils Frahm - Mi (Soul Channel Rework)___Out on Erased Tapes Records

Penguin Cafe's critically acclaimed second studio album, released 17th February 2014. 
The Red Book is the culmination of two years work that has seen Arthur Jeffes - son of original composer and Penguin Cafe Orchestra founder Simon Jeffes - investigate whole new areas of sound and vibrancy, alongside his eclectic collection of musicians and characters, marking an ambitious extension from their debut ‘A Matter of Life’ (2011).

The catalyst for the new recording came about when Jeffes worked on a project with the International Space Orchestra and NASA Ames in 2012, out of which came the pieces Aurora and 1420, which have since been beamed into space as part of NASA’s Kepler project. These touchstones marked a satellitic beginning for a new album, a collection of songs that return to earth to undertake a rich, cross-continental, musical journey.

The Red Book (FINAL MASTERED)

1420

Union Cafe and Concert Program were released in 1994 and 1995 by Simon Jeffes, on his label Zopf Records. Simon himself saw them as the last part of the 'Octave' of Penguin Cafe Orchestra recordings.

As part of the ongoing curation of the Penguin cafe story, they were gently re-mastered by Simon's son Arthur Jeffes, and rereleased in 2011 along with 'Piano Music' a posthumous album of Simon's piano pieces. 



2 Lifeboat (Lovers Rock)

Penguin Cafe is a continuation by Arthur Jeffes of the ideas and music that his father, Simon Jeffes the English composer and musician, created with the enduring and ever-evolving concept of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

During the first two years the new band were touring and playing the original music and they were writing and performing new pieces as they emerged. This record is a collection of some of these pieces, released in 2011.

Penguin Cafe release their new album 'The Imperfect Sea' in 2017, accompanied by international touring.

visit us www.penguincafe.com | www.arthurjeffes.com

follow us www.facebook.com/ThePenguinCafe | twitter.com/thepenguincafe

Copyright Editions Penguin Cafe Ltd 

6 Pale Peach Jukebox

Concert Program, originally released in 1995, was the eighth PCO album in 19th years. It is both a live album, recorded in a studio setting, and a compilation, reprising selections from the two decades of Penguin Cafe Orchestra music, from early 'Air a Danser' and 'Music for a Found Harmonium' through 'Cage Dead', from the later released recording, Union Cafe.

Penguin Cafe release their new album 'The Imperfect Sea' in 2017, accompanied by international touring.

visit us www.penguincafe.com | www.arthurjeffes.com

follow us www.facebook.com/ThePenguinCafe | twitter.com/thepenguincafe

Copyright Editions Penguin Cafe Ltd


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Pre-order 'The Imperfect Sea' on Vinyl, CD and DL here: phonofile.link/the-imperfect-sea

The iconic Penguin Cafe join the Erased Tapes family and open a brand new chapter to their unique world with new album The Imperfect Sea – out on Erased Tapes 5th May 2017.

A penguin stands in the middle of a scorching desert, far away from its natural habitat. This mirrors composer Arthur Jeffes’ journey and exploration into a new musical territory. Penguin Cafe have evolved into something of their own at the hands of Arthur who started the band in 2009 with the continuation and homage to his father’s legacy, to the late Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Now, their upcoming album echoes reminiscent sounds that embrace the new.

The album title refers to a saying by his father that “we wade in a sea of imperfections…”, reflecting upon the idea that beauty can be found amongst the chaos. “If there is a narrative to the album it’s coming to the acceptance of the imperfections in all aspects of life; moreover, the recognition that these imperfections and tiny randomnesses are in fact what make up the best parts”, Arthur explains. This has also been highlighted by the striking cover artwork designed by FELD under the art direction of label founder Robert Raths, resembling a lone figure adapting to and accepting its surrounding environment.

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.”

On the day of release, the band will play a headline show at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, commencing the beginning of this new adventure for Penguin Cafe.

The Imperfect Sea

Buy LP/CD/DL

Penguin Cafe - Ricercar

Galaxies Like Grains of Sand

Lullaby

It is the year 1998: What might have been the first decade in the history of pop music that was characterized by an overwhelming sense of fragmentation is drawing to a close. Anything goes: guitars & electro, retro sounds or wicked forays into the digitized future. Pop hasn’t sounded this optimistic and upbeat in a while, and there’s currently no need for Weltschmerz in Indie anymore. Gunnar Örn Tynes and Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason have been making music together as múm for about a year at this point – though it’s not like anyone really took note of them or cared back in 1998.
The two band mates are basically nomadic drifters: They are constantly moving from one basement studio to the next, traveling through Europe, recording anything and everything that comes to mind. Whenever they feel like getting some fresh air, they go out with their DAT recorders to do some field recordings – only to return to some unfurnished apartment in Reykjavík, Montpellier or Berlin in order to mix and combine all the recorded material. Accordingly, the duo indeed also pushes the level of fragmentation in music. However, múm do not have set ideas or a clear mission. All they do is sample, play around, mix, recombine things, and ultimately marvel at the results. And then, at a theater production, Gunnar and Örvar meet twin sisters Kristín and Gyða. And then there were four.
Early Birds is all about those days: It’s a compilation of 15 tracks, all of them recorded between 1998-2000 and long-lost or extremely rare, taken from demo tapes or limited edition vinyl releases. Accordingly, you’ll find not only a track from the aforementioned theater production, but also the yet-unreleased “Hvernig á að særa vini sína”, a fan favorite ever since, that was included on the soundtrack to the movie The Exploding Girl.
múm had a trademark even back in the earliest days: their compositions were all about melodies. Yet, that’s about the only thing these 15 songs have in common. Especially the first half of the compilation focuses more on the playful, “full of beans”-type of experimental tracks: pastiche and experimentation are key, and it’s anything goes indeed: they go from hyped-up pre-Electronica sound to jazzy Drum & Bass, and they aren’t even afraid to present a double-neck guitar solo à la Hair Metal done kiddie style. However, as said above, all the early experiments nevertheless share a certain signature sound. The second half of the album is comprised of those quieter, rather massive múm tracks, with only a few analog layers, harmonious and blissful, revolving around each other for minutes. These tracks are somehow reminiscent of minimal music, but then again they are simply too charming, too wistful and clearly not made for academics.
Early Birds ends with a contemplative piece that’s 10 minutes long and comprised of field recordings, harmonica, accordion, and lots of room for reverb (you could almost call it Dub). In this case the song title pretty much translates to “No one was listening to the fiddler, because the fiddle-strings were broken (why can’t you be good to your mother?)”. This final track ultimately became the “Ballad Of The Broken String” on múm’s debut album “Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today Is OK” (2001), though this early version is indeed quite different. When the debut dropped, múm had found their sound. The rest is history: The band was hailed as a key exponent of “Electronica”, and with every release they sounded more and more unique and complete – only to become what might be Iceland’s most original band today.
Early Birds showcases the formative years and perfectly illustrates this evolution, though at the same time it shows that things could’ve turned out quite differently. Plus, it also proves one other thing: Yesterday was OK, too.
The compilation album comes with nostalgic artwork by Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir who experienced the early days of múm first hand. Both the LP and CD version include a booklet that explains how each of the 15 (mostly instrumental) tracks came about.



múm - 0,000Orð

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.

Oscar Tango

Warner CD - Steve Reich - Piano Counterpoint (Vincent Corver)

The Official home of Penguin Cafe on Soundcloud. 

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. 

2019 sees 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.

Handfuls of Night is out on October 4th amid a string of UK live dates, before taking the album on a worldwide tour in 2020 with more dates to be announced

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Penguin Cafe

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