Back by popular demand :) - Album 4 from the stacks:
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Concert Program
First stumbled across them in college - bought "Broadcasting from Home" because of the cool cover and the salesperson said "they're kind of weird". Admit it - we've all done that at one time or another. Didn't buy any more of them until this "live concert" (not that you'd notice) retrospective that was released in 94/95ish. I think the creative force (Simon Jeffes) has since passsed away.
They're not easy to characterize - they'd probably be lumped under "New Age" in your local record store ... but if anything, they're "Old Age".
They are mini-orchestral (instrumentation includes cello, clarinet, viola, trombone, oboe, violin, piano, harmonium, cor anglais, string bass, as well as some guitar and piano). An occasional modern touch (the telephone as instrument). No vocals -
The music itself is seductive/hypnotic (or totally boring, depending on your POV). PCO seizes on a repetitive, simple melody in most of their songs - and although meandering hither and thither a bit, you can hear the same melodic undercurrents layered throughout. An orchestral rondo of sorts.
It's soothing in a - for lack of better words - primal sense. I think we all have an innate sense of pattern and rhythm, and can find it incredibly comforting and soothing. Well - that's the Jungian nerve that PCO hits - a melodic archetype that we all share; being taken back to the collective musical womb, as it were. (okay, so I'm spouting some new age mumbo jumbo myself, but I still wouldn't put the band in the bin with Yanni)...
Although the samples are mere 30-second snippets, you can get a sense of what I mean - especially from Air A Danser, Numbers 1-4, Air, and Perpetuum Mobile.
Not the sort of music that you pull out every day, but when you're in the mood for a musical "retreat" - for some pastoral melodies in a harried world, PCO may fit the bill.
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Concert Program
First stumbled across them in college - bought "Broadcasting from Home" because of the cool cover and the salesperson said "they're kind of weird". Admit it - we've all done that at one time or another. Didn't buy any more of them until this "live concert" (not that you'd notice) retrospective that was released in 94/95ish. I think the creative force (Simon Jeffes) has since passsed away.
They're not easy to characterize - they'd probably be lumped under "New Age" in your local record store ... but if anything, they're "Old Age".
They are mini-orchestral (instrumentation includes cello, clarinet, viola, trombone, oboe, violin, piano, harmonium, cor anglais, string bass, as well as some guitar and piano). An occasional modern touch (the telephone as instrument). No vocals -
The music itself is seductive/hypnotic (or totally boring, depending on your POV). PCO seizes on a repetitive, simple melody in most of their songs - and although meandering hither and thither a bit, you can hear the same melodic undercurrents layered throughout. An orchestral rondo of sorts.
It's soothing in a - for lack of better words - primal sense. I think we all have an innate sense of pattern and rhythm, and can find it incredibly comforting and soothing. Well - that's the Jungian nerve that PCO hits - a melodic archetype that we all share; being taken back to the collective musical womb, as it were. (okay, so I'm spouting some new age mumbo jumbo myself, but I still wouldn't put the band in the bin with Yanni)...
Although the samples are mere 30-second snippets, you can get a sense of what I mean - especially from Air A Danser, Numbers 1-4, Air, and Perpetuum Mobile.
Not the sort of music that you pull out every day, but when you're in the mood for a musical "retreat" - for some pastoral melodies in a harried world, PCO may fit the bill.