Signs of Life (1987) ...
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra was a collective of performing musicians created by classically trained British guitarist, composer and arranger Simon Jeffes. Jeffes and cellist co-founder Helen Liebmann were core members throughout its life and a number of other musicians joined as the band grew and developed, many of whom appear on the PCO's six studio albums...Heartwind ...
The idea of the Penguin Cafe came to Jeffes in a dream he had following a bout of food poisoning in 1972. It would become a sort of creative zone in which all the subconscious instincts we suppress so as to maintain order in our daily lives were allowed free and easy play. This could be a formula for chaos but, for all its unexpectedness, its juxtapositions of high classical and rustic folk, Penguin Cafe music is warm, tonal, accessible, generally brings a smile to the face in its playful and unlikely resolutions of opposites. Its benign simplicity also belies the quite astonishing lateral leaps of thinking it takes. Random example; ‘The Snake And The Lotus’ from ‘Signs Of Life’, whose main riff ascends unassumingly up and down the fretboard as if it were a flight of stairs. Yet for all its modesty, it's one of the treasures of the PCO canon. From what depths of his pysche did Jeffes pull this tiny pearl?... Quietus ...Perpetuum Mobile ...
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