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Jazz Articles about Nick Blacka
GoGo Penguin: Necessary Fictions
by Geno Thackara
What exactly is the entity known as GoGo Penguin? After several recordings developing a niche they call “acoustic electronica"--an amorphous recipe of rock-and techno-oriented hooks played on jazz instruments in real time--one might have thought we had the answer to that question with the eponymous GoGo Penguin (Blue Note, 2020). Like many self-titled albums, it made a clear statement of identity with a defining sound. Then again, it was soon followed by a companion remix album (Blue Note, 2021) of ...
Continue ReadingGoGo Penguin: Everything Is Going to Be OK
by Geno Thackara
There is clearly something different about GoGo Penguin on their sixth full-length: where they've previously had a pattern of evocative titles and vaguely futuristic abstract covers, this one (at first glance) looks and reads almost like a greeting card. This also comes after one-third of the trio changed with 2022's interim EP, Between Two Waves (Sony/XXIM). Underneath the wrapping, though, it's recognizably the same evolving not-jazz-not-techno mix that they've made into their own niche, even when taking time to touch ...
Continue ReadingGoGo Penguin: GGP/RMX
by Geno Thackara
It was really just a matter of time. With the spirit of techno and trance being such an essential part of GoGo Penguin's musical makeup, the seeds of a remix project have been there all along; they often compose their songs with beat programs before deciding how to arrange them for an acoustic trio, and adding little sonic tweaks to their instruments is just as much a part of the process afterwards. It's perfectly apt that a range of clever ...
Continue ReadingGoGo Penguin: GoGo Penguin
by Geno Thackara
Calling GoGo Penguin a jazz group is sort of like calling Canada a big snowy place. Nobody would consider such a simple term adequate to describe the trio today, least of all the members themselves--bassist Nick Blacka explains that with album number five, GGP has “finally come to accept that we really just aren't a jazz band ... That has been really liberating and freeing for all of us." If anything, it's surprising that these three might have ever felt ...
Continue ReadingGoGo Penguin: Ocean in a Drop
by Geno Thackara
While William Blake saw the world in a grain of sand, and the poet Rumi wrote that each person is not a drop in an ocean but rather the opposite, GoGo Penguin's ever-expanding sonic world hints at similar multitudes yet to be experienced. It rarely sounds like “just" piano, bass and drums in these hands, and the scope of Ocean in a Drop doesn't feel limited by the brevity of its EP length. They hit the ground running and pack ...
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