The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) was an avant pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band’s sound is not easily categorized, having elements of exuberant folk and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass.
The group recorded and performed for 24 years until Jeffes sadly died of an inoperable brain tumour in 1997. This is one of their signature pieces and it eventually finds a wider audience when it is included in the soundtrack of the film Napoleon Dynamite (admittedly in a cover version).
Several members of the original group reunited for three concerts in 2007. Since then, five original members have continued to play concerts of PCO’s music, initially as The Anteaters, then as The Orchestra That Fell to Earth. In this clip Geoffrey Richardson plays viola, Steve Fletcher cuatro, Annie Whitehead is on trombone, Jennifer Maidman bass and Liam Genockey, percussion. They are playing their version of Simon Jeffes’ arrangement of Giles Farnaby’s English Renaisance piece , live and unplugged at the Cafe Ole’ in Kent.
In 2009, Jeffes’ son Arthur founded a successor band simply called Penguin Cafe. Although it includes no original PCO members, the band features many PCO pieces in its live repertoire, and records and performs new music written by Arthur. The all-new ensemble, sometimes inaccurately billed as The Penguin Cafe Orchestra, played at a number of festivals in 2009, combining Penguin Cafe numbers with new pieces. In 2010 they appeared at the BBC Proms with Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell. Here they are performing probablably the most celebrated of all Simon Jeffes pieces Perpetuum Mobile in Manchester in 2019. It has been used in several films, television and radio programmes, including the televison adaption of the Handmaid’s Tale.
Swedish DJ Avicii sampled the main melody for his song “Fade into Darkness” and in his collaboration with Leona Lewis in her song Collide. Because it was written in the 15/8 time signature, the melody seems to end and repeat one beat sooner than expected, giving it the feel of a perpetual motion device.
