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Penguin Cafe: Handfuls Of Night
by Mark Sullivan
Penguin Cafe continues in the tradition of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, producing individualistic minimalist music using acoustic instruments. Previous album The Inconstant Sea (Erased Tapes Records Ltd, 2017) dabbled in dance music, with versions of Simian Mobile Disco and Kraftwerk tunes. This time the theme is the Antarctic: Greenpeace commissioned composer Arthur Jeffes to write four pieces of music corresponding to four breeds of penguins, to help raise awareness for the endangered Antarctic seas. So Jeffes (who has visited the ...
read morePenguin Cafe: The Imperfect Sea
by Mark Sullivan
Composer Arthur Jeffes started Penguin Cafe in 2009 to pay homage to his father Simon Jeffes' Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and to continue the concept. While the new band still plays some of the original repertoire, Arthur has composed new music all along. Like Simon Jeffes' music, Arthur's shows the influence of folk music and minimalism. There's less whimsy--a frequent element in Simon's work, and a difficult thing to pull off successfully unless you have the knack. The Imperfect ...
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