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GoGo Penguin

GoGo Penguin have been internationally hailed as electrifying live performers, innovative soundtrack composers, and as a collective who channel electronic and club culture atmospheres alongside, minimalist jazz and rock influences to create music that pulses and flows from the dancefloor to meditative inner-worlds, transporting us into brand new realms. Their latest album GGP/ RMX (Blue Note Lab) is a brilliant, vivid, reimagination of their self-defining masterwork, GoGo Penguin and features an array of the world’s sharpest artist-producers and remixers, including remixes from Cornelius, Machinedrum, Yosi Horikawa, Rone, Nathan Fake, 808 State, James Holden, Shunya, Clark, Portico Quartet and Squarepusher. GGP/RMX was released May 7, 2021. GoGo Penguin are: Chris Illingworth (piano), Nick Blacka (bass), Jon Scott (drums). Plus Joe Reiser (sound production).

Emotive, cinematic break-beat trio GoGo Penguin are back, with their brand new album Everything Is Going to Be OK - April 14, 2023. Bursting with the optimism of new beginnings, with a new drummer, a new record label, (Sony Music electronica and neo-classical imprint XXIM Records), and a subtly updated and developed sound, the band are ushering in a more sonically liberated era. 

Everything Is Going to Be OK is born from a time of turbulence and loss. During a personally difficult period for the band, including deep personal loss and mourning, the studio offered the band a sanctuary from real life. The resulting project, given such vibrant life here, draws its strength from a shared understanding and empathy. Life has many great aspects to it and despite the lows, we should be mindful and grateful to celebrate the highs at every turn. Through our hardships, together, we will emerge stronger; everything is going to be ok.


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Radio & Podcasts

New music from Bob Holz, Evan Marien, Go Go Penguin and Jaak Sooaar

Read "New music from Bob Holz, Evan Marien, Go Go Penguin and Jaak Sooaar" reviewed by Len Davis


Featuring new releases from Bob Holz, Wojtek Pillichoiwski, Evan Marien, Dana Hawkins, Go Go Penguin and Jaak Sooaar. Plus music from Italian guitarist Rugerro Robin, Wasafiri and Japanese band Casiopea.Playlist Bob Holz “World Turned Upside Down" from Holz-Stathis Collaborative (MVD) 00:00 Wojtek Pilichowski “Vihoora" from Conjunction (Self Produced) 06:16 Evan Marien-Dana Hawkins “Water On The Brain" from Live-2023 (EMAR)12:21 Go Go Penguin “Everything Is Going To Be OK Everything Is Going To Be OK (XXIM Records) 18:31 Jaak ...

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Album Review

GoGo Penguin: Everything Is Going to Be OK

Read "Everything Is Going to Be OK" reviewed 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 ...

5
Album Review

GoGo Penguin: GGP/RMX

Read "GGP/RMX" reviewed 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 ...

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Year in Review

Geno Thackara's Best Releases of 2020

Read "Geno Thackara's Best Releases of 2020" reviewed by Geno Thackara


However strange the year has gotten, the urge to create clearly hasn't lessened at all--either that or the circumstances have left us more appreciative of art where we find it. Most likely it's some of both. Whatever the case may be, 2020 has still seen no shortage of musical treats good for the soul. Jazzrausch Bigband Beethoven's Breakdown ACT Music Jazzrausch pulls off something wonderful here, adapting revered material with house-shaking ...

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Album Review

GoGo Penguin: GoGo Penguin

Read "GoGo Penguin" reviewed 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 ...

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Album Review

GoGo Penguin: Ocean in a Drop

Read "Ocean in a Drop" reviewed 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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"GoGo Penguin defies genre, pulling together influences from trip-hop, classical, jazz and more" Wall Street Journal "Manchester trio GoGo Penguin are tearing up the genres with Man Made Object, a rowdy not-quite-jazz album that nods its head to Four Tet and Aphex Twin" Huck Magazine "[v2.0] pushes the acoustic piano trio format further into the future” (Jazzwise Magazine). "[v2.0] showcases a group marking out their own musical world" John Bungey (The Times) “Harmonically ambitious music that’s both immediately exciting and cerebrally led.” (Mercury Music Prize)

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Concerts

May 5 Sun
May 7 Tue
GOGO PENGUIN
Le Bikini
Ramonville St Agne, France
May 10 Fri
May 12 Sun
GoGo Penguin
Wylam Brewery Tap
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
May 13 Mon

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

GGP/RMX

Blue Note Records
2021

buy

GoGo Penguin

Blue Note Records
2020

buy

Live from Studio 2

Blue Note Records
2020

buy

Ocean in a Drop

Blue Note Records
2019

buy

Videos

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