The Snake and the Lotus (The Pond) from Signs of Life...
Amazing track =>
our new Sundog website went up today - check it out...
Cool news on its way for Penguins in 2012/13...
Slowly getting over the jetlag but we're back from what was for us an amazingly successful tour of Australia. We'll be putting up loads of photos and video as we can find the time at the penguin cafe table. lots of fun was had by all -
we did two Sundog gigs as well as 5 Penguin Cafe ones - we had Andy, Vince and Pete join Arthur to do a special band-within-a-band Australian Sundog and it worked really well (up until now Sundog has just been Arthur on piano and Oli Langford on vilolin). We'll have to see how that goes forward. It certainly works as a sort of research wing of the Penguin Cafe project...
Here are some more video's from Sydney and Womadelaide:
Last hours before we go - wondering what to pack...
Happy to announce that we're off to Antwerp almost immediately after we get back from Australia...
We've never been there before - this year shaping up to be very cool. Hope to announce some more overseas adventures soon.
New tracks for this year... very exciting.
Happy to say that the Sundog EP - "INSOFAR - SIDE 1" (the first new project to come out on the Penguin Cafe Label) has now been mastered and is being smoothly and efficiently prepared for presentation to the world. We're putting some of the tracks up on facebook as a bit of a taster...
We're very pleased to put up our first UK gig announcement for 2012 - London, June 3rd, Victoria Park...
early bird tickets available now!
www.theapplecartfestival.com
And so, without any further ado...
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Perth - Perth Festival - Sat 3 March
Buy tickets »
Melbourne - Melbourne Recital Hall - Mon 5 March
Buy tickets »
Sydney - City Recital Hall - Angel Place - Wed 7 March
cityrecitalhall.com (pre-sale with City Recital Centre through www.ticketmaster.com.au at the end of Nov and on sale to the general public on 4 Dec)
Adelaide - WOMADelaide - Fri 9-Monday 12 March
womadelaide.com.au (announced today)
Tour produced by Arts Projects Australia.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We're very pleased to announce that Penguin Cafe will be touring major cities in Australia in Feb/March 2012. Full details on November 14th...
Arthur has been asked to get something together for the Olympics - for the BT River Of Music, a series of huge stages along the Thames - each one representing one of the continents... all taking place the weekend before the 2012 Games start. Our project is based around a theme derived from rather simply putting the shape of the Thames over a musical stave - which works for London but seems not to work for anywhere else...
The whole project got announced publicly today so we can talk about it - more info to follow but we'll be getting stuck in over these next few months. Very happy to be involved - should be an amazing weekend!
Its all been going great - one more Penguin gig this Sunday in Waterford, Ireland and then settling in to cosy fires and hibernating for the Winter...
The Sundog tour was great fun - we ended up at the Purcell Room in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall after a couple of weeks up and down the country and each concert was cheerfully different - but all lovely crowds and we'll start work on this first album as soon as we've recovered.
There will also be some exciting announcements hopefully later this week for Penguin Cafe's plans for 2012. Watch this space and also our facebook page.
Friday at Canary Wharf East Wintergarden. See dates for details...
Only three more this year as currently planned but we'll soon be announcing some very cool overseas touring for the new year...
Hoping everyone clocked the amazing new glass penguins by Anthony Stern on the shop... Not that many left since everyone here at Penguin Cafe ahas been snaffling them.
The new Sundog project now has its own website. More to come but take a look - concerts happening in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Basingstoke, Gateshead and London QEH. Come down if you can! Dates on the site...
Sundog will be touring in October. Its the first new project to come out on the new Pengiun Cafe Label - and see's Arthur Jeffes (piano) and Oli Langford (violin) playing a cheerful and beautiful blend of post minimalist experimentation...
Thu 13 Oct
LIVERPOOL Capstone Theatre
thecapstonetheatre.com / 0151 291 3578
Fri 14 Oct
MANCHESTER RNCM
rncm.ac.uk / 0161 907 5200
Sat 15 Oct
LEEDS Howard Assembly Room at Opera North
operanorth.co.uk / 0113 245 0780
Sun 16 Oct
BASINGSTOKE The Anvil
anvilarts.org.uk / 01256 844244
Tue 18 Oct
GATESHEAD The Sage Gateshead
thesagegateshead.org / 0191 443 4661
Fri 21 Oct
LONDON Southbank Centre / Purcell Room
southbankcentre.co.uk / 0844 875 0073
We've done 34 gigs this year so far (we're off to Ireland in late October) and now we're stopping for a bit...
We'll be putting up a bunch of photos, recordings (once we've gone through them all and found any good bits!) presently and also putting out samples of the projects we're starting to get involved with.
Looking forward to more touring next year - hopefully visiting some new and rather more distant territories... watch this space!
Many thanks to all the people who came down to the gigs and made them all such successes - we were as delighted as we were surprised - it means a lot to us that my dad's music is still so loved.
AJ
We'll do these and then we'll have done, we think, 34 concerts so far this year...
Tomorrow its Snape Proms up at Aldeburgh and on Sunday we're at Standon Calling. Its been a fantastic year so far and thank you for all the support.
Our support band - Beth Jeans Houghton - are on at 8; Penguin Cafe onstage at 9pm...
Come on down!
We played for millions this morning on the BBC Breakfast programme - it was really good fun even though we did get faded out at the end - Television Centre is amazing - very 70's. We'll be very sorry to see it go...
We've been hard at work getting new material ready for tomorrow... may have to practise a bit on the bus but its all sounding very cool.
1
3 events in total
One day in the early 1970's, English composer Simon Jeffes was in the South of France, suffering from a terrible bout of food poisoning. He had a series of feverish waking dreams featuring a dystopian view of the near future, where all was grey and concrete.
People lived in huge grey blocks and one could see into the windows. In one room a couple was making love soundlessly and lovelessly. In another someone was simply sat staring at a screen. In a third room a musician sat working at an array of electronic equipment but he was wearing headphones and the room was totally silent. In the top corner of each room a camera watched all that happened like a malevolent eye.
This world was de-humanised and crushing for the heart... but one could reject it and look further afield. If you looked down the road a certain distance you could see a ramshackle building with noise and light and chaotic music bursting out of doors in to the night. This was the Penguin Cafe. Inside it was an Ekonomiyaki bar, with long tables where everyone sits together. There was sawdust on the floors and when you were feeling tired the glasses made themselves lighter to help you. In the back there was always a band playing music. Without knowing where, one always felt that one had heard the music before. This was the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
On waking, the words of a poem came to him. It began: "I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe. I will tell you things at random...".
From this was borne the inspiration to write the music that would be played by the musicians in the back of the Penguin Cafe. Jeffes did this with great success with a number of very talented musicians over the next 30 years until his untimely death in 1997.
13 years on from Simon Jeffes' death, his son, Arthur, started playing this music again. Under the name Penguin Cafe, Arthur and a group of new musicians are re-visiting the music; starting a new chapter in the story of this unique and strange creative world.
From left to right:
Photography
Steve Gullick 2010
| 02 March 2012 | The Australian (link) |
| 09 July 2011 | Hackney Empire (link) |
| 24 May 2011 | Salisbury May 2011 (pdf) |
| 24 February 2011 | The Scotsman... Edinburgh (link) |
| 22 February 2011 | Scottish Herald (link) |
| 22 February 2011 | The Arts Desk - review of Edinburgh (link) |
| 21 February 2011 | The Quietus (link) |
| 17 February 2011 | ThisIsLancashire.Co.Uk (link) |
| 17 February 2011 | The Jazz Man... Warwick (link) |
| 12 February 2011 | Classical Source (link) |
| 11 February 2011 | Allgigs.co.uk (link) |
| 11 February 2011 | AAA Music (link) |
| 08 February 2011 | Guardian (link) |
| 06 February 2011 | Times (pdf) |
| 05 February 2011 | Indie (pdf) |
| 05 February 2011 | Guardian (pdf) |
| 31 January 2011 | Basingstoke Gazette (pdf) |
| 31 January 2011 | Newbury Weekly News (pdf) |
| 29 January 2011 | FT review Matter of Life (link) |
| 15 November 2010 | Nihon Keizai Newspaper (Japan) |
| 15 September 2010 | Guardian Music review (link) |
| 15 December 2009 | Times from 2009 (link) |
| 12 September 2009 | The Arts Desk (link) |
| 12 September 2009 | Robert Sandall - 2009 - The Arts Desk (link) |
General Enquiries: message@penguincafe.com
Booking Agent: serious.org.uk
Press Contact: Sally Reeves - sallyreeves@btinternet.com
