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Penguin Cafe Orchestra (1981)

Moments of sheer idyllic bliss along with quirky weirdness. A lot of albums could be described in this way, but this is probably the most fitting. It’s got a sentimental and calm feel to it, forcing you to think about happy things. It’s almost as if the album is made up of a group of people you know, rather than a group of songs. Some of them are delightfully innovative; they charm the hell out of you, like ‘Telephone and a Rubber Band’ – which samples a telephone signal – sounding like some pleasant dream that makes you chuckle as you wake up. Each track has its own personality, be it thoughtful and calm or lively and energetic but there are rarely any sad moments. It may be relaxed, but it’s a very conscious record; you can’t fall asleep to it, which is a shame because it’s a kind of record that’ll put you into a really good dreamy mood for it, although, ‘Yodel 1′ and ‘Numbers 1 – 4′ could supply that. It’s also so much more of an organic record than its predecessor ‘Music From The Penguin Cafe’. That record sounds more like black and white kitchen floors compared to this natural-sounding wonder.

With this album, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra achieve something higher than cheefulness and/or dreaminess and achieves it with personality and charisma. An almost universally likeable record. —Joe

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