Since the ‘70s, Penguin Café Orchestra has entertained us with their classically-tinged rock experiments.  Encouraged by Brian Eno, whose love of music knows no boundaries and may singly be responsible for more variations of Rock than any one individual could ever lay claim to.  But Eno did not craft every eclectic note of music.  Some of that music came from minds as diverse as Simon Jeffes, whose leadership of Penguin Café Orchestra took the band through the headphones of seekers of varied musical experiences. 

The catalogue of Penguin Café Orchestra is small.  But the wealth of music contained in those albums is vast.  Many albums and their songs show musical fusion with Jazz, Bluegrass, Rock, Classical, all with an avant-garde panache, a rare accomplishment for a band.  Simon Jeffes carried the weight of the band with his multi-instrumentalist talents and incredible compositions.  However, Penguin Café Orchestra would not be what it was without the many instrumentalists that walked through those doors, many of them violinists (a core instrument of the band).

Their first album in 1976, Music From the Penguin Café, is a collection of diverse tunes that incorporate many styles and genres.  Recorded in various settings, there is a lot of charm on this album.  Strange as this album may seem, it is a gateway entry to the strange world of Jeffes’ dream-like band.  How can anyone ignore the short but wonderful ukulele tune like “Giles Farnaby’s Dream”?

Their self-titled debut (1981), firmly ensconced within the cradle of Eno’s boutique label, EG Records, is a solidly defined effort that takes music further out of the traditional realm.  “Telephone and Rubber Band” underscores the fascination with ‘sound into music’ that Jeffes indulged in.  The core of this song is a melodic series of pressed tones on a phone, and precise flicks of a rubber band, all joined by violin.  The rest of the album is a better-produced continuity of adventurous melodies – a little bit island reggae, a lot neo-classicism, with feet wet in cultural waters, and some improvisational dream-stuff and jazz.  Use you imagination.  Jeffes would have wanted you to open up.

Their next, Broadcasting From Home (1984), was more of the same spread.  Leading off with a Philip Glass-like “Music for a Found Harmonium,” and then dropping into a reclusive violin piece with “Prelude and Yodel” that eventually transitions from a traditional classical bit into a progressive jazz piece.  That is followed by a rhythmic “More Milk,” and well…you get the picture.  It is Penguin Café Orchestra being itself, led by Jeffes and his ‘state of flux’ clan of musicians.

The remaining two albums from the EG years, Signs of Life (1991), and the Live set, When in Rome… (1990), closed an important chapter for the band.  They released several more albums afterwards, but not as prolifically and with such a distinct purpose of being than they did with this string of albums.  Signs of Life, recorded between 1985 and 1987, projected a less experimental facet of the band, and reflecting more like a prototypical Windham Hill roster band, musically.

When in Rome…produced beautiful live versions of familiar Penguin Café Orchestra songs.  One of my favourites, “Giles Farnaby’s Dream, unveils like a culturally rich, Mexican-like huapango tune.

Sadly, there are no hefty booklets included in these sonically updated reissues to delight and inform fans of the band.  The reissues are released in glossy-stock digipaks, all bearing a similarity in packaging, and all with no accompanying booklets.  This is fine as they belong together.  The 2005 re-mastering efforts are superb and are the highlight of these imported reissues by Caroline Records.  Jeffes is no longer with us, a shame because a band like Penguin Café Orchestra ages well and should have released far more than we have from them.  Regardless, these re-masters are wonderful audio updates to wonderful albums.

If you’re a fan of this musically rich band, or even of the Windham Hill glory years, then you’ll be pleased with these re-masters of a band that virtually started a New Age phenomenon.