#12 Music for a Found Harmonium

I've been mulling over where to go next, especially as Minternational's songs have all been taking a definitely meaningful turn...and quite a few of mine aren't...errr...quite so meaningful. So I have paused on the loud and shallow for a moment, and cheated by going instrumental.

There was a time when mostly everything I listened to was instrumental: multi-layered, long, involved pieces. It might be the sound-colour synesthesia, which means the more layers and activity, the bigger the 'pictures' (I could get quite spaced out as a teenager on long, complex compositions). That hasn't changed but is more dilute with other kinds of stuff. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra isn't a 'band' I have submerged myself into as much as some others: it's generally not as layered or developed BUT some of their short pieces are great.

The mind behind them was Simon Jeffes, who sadly died from a tumour many years ago. Trying to find a way between the structure of classical music and the limitations of the rock format, he became influenced by ethnic music - and somehow it all got fused together in dreamlike tracks. The story behind the band's name is lovely: lying on a beach one day, he suddenly found he was writing a poem in his mind:

I am the proprietor of the Penguin Café, I will tell you things at random...

He goes on to describe the freedom of spontaniety etc. And the Orchestra is the in-house band for this cafe.

As usual I could have chosen a number of tracks, but I have plumped for the archetypal PCO track - which I first heard on a film trailer in the late 80s, and tracked it down; more recently a guitar version was used on the re-launch adverts for the ill-fated MFI furniture company.

So here is Music for a Found Harmonium. But also check out, Perpetuum Mobile (which is one of those tracks running through my head whilst trying to work out God's plan for our future, over the last 18months)