That, Not That

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


1 - 1 Air À Danser

Initially being released as a limited 12" vinyl edition on Record Store Day 2017, it will be re-released on vinyl, CD and digital formats on June 16th due to popularity. Pre-order 'Umbrella' on EP/CD/DL: http://phonofile.link/umbrella

Worlds collide as the iconic Penguin Cafe and Japanese producer Cornelius' mutual admiration for one another led to them joining forces for this four-track Umbrella EP.

The pair crossed paths in 2012 when Penguin Cafe were touring in Japan, and Cornelius’ band Saryu Saryu supported them in Tokyo. Since then they decided to seize the opportunity to work together, and have reworked and reimagined existing tracks of their own, alongside two new Penguin Cafe songs.

“Meeting up with Cornelius in Tokyo felt like such good fate we kind of had to do something together. And this two-way remix worked great as we could work from different sides of the planet but still end up with something by us both. His electro vibes inspired us not just with Birdwatching but also Dull Sun and it's a path we carried on down with the new album.... so glad we did that.” — Arthur Jeffes

“I was listening to Penguin Cafe since high school so was excited to be able to collaborate with them.
When I went to see their show in Tokyo I was surprised that they performed Bird Watching at Inner Forest. It was an honor for me. If there is a chance to collaborate again, I look forward to that day.” — Keigo Oyamada (Cornelius)

The complimentary sounds of Penguin Cafe on piano and strings, merged with the electronic soundscape of Cornelius, form this special collaborative piece.

Umbrella EP

Buy 12"/CD/DL

Penguin Cafe - Solaris (Cornelius Mix)

Pre-order 'All Together Again' on LP/CD/DL: http://phonofile.link/all-together-again

There is no end to composer Peter Broderick’s creative output, and so we present to you his new album titled 'All Together Again' — available worldwide on November 17th 2017 via Erased Tapes. 

Words from Peter, October 2017:

"Ever since I started releasing records in 2007 (10 years ago now!), people have contacted me periodically to ask if I’d be interested in making music to accompany their projects. Most of these projects have been things like films, dance pieces and theatre plays . . . but every so often I get the odd request for something a little different. Peter, would you write a song for my wedding? My one year anniversary? A ferry boat ride?

In early 2015 I was asked to perform 12 minutes of music during a runway show as part of New York Fashion Week. I agreed and began composing a 12-minute piece which I could perform on my own with a few different instruments and some looping pedals. I made a recording of the piece and sent it over to my contacts at the fashion show . . . but a few days before I was to fly out to New York, they wrote back and told me they actually just wanted me to play a few older songs that they were already familiar with. Feeling slightly disappointed, I shelved the other piece, giving it the title If I Were A Runway Model.

It is with great pleasure that I now present this piece in a collection of commissioned works spanning the last decade . . . it’s All Together Again. This group of oddball works does indeed include a couple pieces written for weddings (Our Future In Wedlock and The Walk), and a song someone asked me to write as a gift for his wife on their first year wedding anniversary (Emily). And indeed, there’s a 17-minute piece written to accompany a ferry boat ride in Istanbul (A Ride On The Bosphorus). A few of the pieces were written for films (Robbie’s Song, Atlantic and Seeing Things), and one for a kind of interactive installation (Unsung Heroes).

In my early days of recording, I took pride in playing all the different instruments myself and doing the recording myself as well. And then at some point I started branching out, working with other musicians and recording engineers. But this record is very dear to me in that it’s a return to that original approach . . . playing all the different instruments myself, working with my limits on each one, and my own limits in recording and mixing. I’ve always held a broad curiosity for all different instruments and all different styles of music, and if nothing else I hope this record will portray that curiosity, and my pure love for this thing we call music. Can you dig it?"

The cover art was made by Peter himself in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, by cutting and sticking different coloured paper fragments to depict the individuality of each track. 

TRACK LISTING

1. If I Were A Runway Model
2. Robbie’s Song
3. A Ride On The Bosphorus
4. Emily
5. Our Future In Wedlock	
6. The Walk
7. Atlantic		
8. Seeing Things
9. Unsung Heroes	

WEBSITE: www.peterbroderick.net

All Together Again

Peter Broderick - A Ride On The Bosphorus

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

Nils Frahm & Anna Müller - Let My Key Be C (Thriller Edit)

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...

HIOR CHRONIK – “BLIND HEAVEN”

Worldwide Release date: November 8th, 2019
On 7K! – LP – CD - Digital – Streaming

Seductive drone and post cinematic soundscapes between ambient, indie-neoclassical music. These are the best words to describe the vibes of the new album by the Greek/Berliner composer Hior Chronik, entitled “Blind Heaven” out on November 8th via 7K! - !K7.


There is a dark and cinematic atmosphere that chases throughout the new album by the Greek composer and producer Hior Chronik, a natural sequel to "Out Of The Dust", released on 7K! in 2017. While retaining an ambient and modern-classic dimension, "Blind Heaven" goes in search of new territories to observe and interpret. Sound landscapes made of synthesizers, electronics, strings, woodwinds and above all magical touches of the piano, so minimal as they are brilliant in their being perfectly integrated into the sonic trajectories traced by the Athens-born artist who has lived in Berlin for several years.

“The meaning of everything I do is to share with people something that maybe
will need to listen and make them feel more emotional in their life.
This album is another part of me. It’s my personal demonstration and voice to everything that hurts nature and weak people.”

Track after track "Blind Heaven" reveals itself by involving the listener in a particularly evocative and immersive multi-stage sound journey: Nocturne, crepuscular, foggy, the record moves in neighboring territories without delineating a precise and static form: the sound moves magmatic, it is discovered, it hides, it explodes, it shrinks and once again it frees itself to cross extremely natural and peaceful landscapes, as well as darker, industrial, apocalyptic, noisy and powerful worlds. Storm, then quiet again, but a stillness crossed by splinters and flashes clearly visible in the distance.

“Blind Heaven is the illusion of everyone that live his myth in his own bubble 
without seeing what’s really going on outside.”  

Created between the autumn and winter of 2019 in Berlin, mixed and mastered in Athens by John Valasis (already at the mix for the previous "Out Of The Dust"), "Blind Heaven" confirms Hior Chronik as one of the main names of the scene poised between the electronic-ambient world and that of modern classic minimalism. Proof of this are the prestigious feature of the album: from the Japanese by Erased Tapes, Masayoshi Fujita (vibraphone in "Blanket"), to the Polish pianist Hania Rani, who for a long time accompanied Hior Chronik on tour and whom we see here on the piano in "Words Are Gone", the producer and sound engineer Francesco Donadello, to the modular synths in "One Eternity At The Time", up to the New York artist Amber Ortolano, voice in "Beneath".


CAT Number: 7K016

1.Imitation of life
2.Beneath (feat. Amber Ortolano)
3.Don’t mess with my heart
4.Blanket (feat. Masayoshi Fujita)
5.Words are gone (feat. Hania Rani)
6.One eternity at a time (feat. Francesco Donatello)
7.Through the path
8.Smash and grab  
9.Intimacy of the unknown 
10.Elixir

Trumpet across the album by Christian Grothe

2* Amber Ortolano - vocals
4* Masayoshi Fujita - Vibraphone Arrangement 
5* Hania Rani - Piano
6* Francesco Donatello - Modular Synths

All songs are composed by Hior Chronik
Lyrics on track 2 by Amber Ortolano
Masayoshi Fujita appears courtesy of Erased Tapes
Hania Rani appears courtesy of Gondwana Records

Mixed & mastered by John Valasis
www.johnvalasis.com
Front cover by Narges Aqamiri
https://www.instagram.com/nargesaqamiri/
Back/Inside cover by Hior Chronik.
Layout by Paolo Proserpio
A&R at 7K! Carlo “Jarno” Garrè - www.7k.k7.com

Blind Heaven

The Words Are Gone Feat. Hania Rani

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.

Giles Farnaby's Dream

Salty Bean Fumble

thesisproject.bandcamp.com/album/thesi…artyn-heyne

Ben Lukas Boysen - editing, zen garden.
Martyn Heyne - guitar, organ.

Composed, mixed, and mastered by Martyn Heyne + Ben Lukas Boysen at Lichte Studio Berlin.
Additional engineering by Matthias H. Franz Hahn. Vinyl cut by Mike Grinser.

Thank You!
Gregory Euclide, Matthias H. Franz Hahn, everyone at Manners McDade, Erased Tapes Records & Publishing, Claudia Gödke, and Karolina Zenobia Heyne.

Dedicated to Frieda and Frau Bellmann.

Thesis 16

& Martyn Heyne - June

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