Zack: Listening to this album brought back horrible repressed memories from every time I've ever been put on hold ever in my life. Right there, I've probably successfully conveyed an exact description of the sound and feel to their music. And yet, I will continue to digress. We've talked plenty of times about music that seems to be designed for ambiance. That may mean a metal album that should be played whenever you're doing something intense and preferably violent or technoey stuff whenever you're flying through a virtual world or hacking or whatever it is you techie kids are doing nowadays. Music From the Penguin Cafe is, at its heart, an ambient album. It accepts that. It never tries to hide under a facade. And while its somewhat admirable that it embraces its identity, that doesn't mean it should be celebrated for anything other than mediocrity. It was adequate ambiance at best, at least compared to my all-time favorite ambient album, Moon Safari by Air. Although, the cover is pretty spiffy. It just kind of cruises along under the same pseudo folk-jazz appeal while the listener is forced to occasionally remember that there is music on. Finally, does anyone else find it weird that I've come so far as to be able to recognize the differences between good, middling, and bad ambiance? Because it's definitely weirding me out.
Favorite Tracks: The Sound of Someone You Love Going Away and It Doesn't Matter; Zopf; Chartered Flight
Emily: Just 2 albums after our last Brian Eno album, we come to yet another. Eno didn't play on the album himself, but he was the executive producer and released it on his experimental record label, Obscure. Now I know the label name has nothing to do with the content of the albums it releases, but obscure just sounds like a good way to describe Music from the Penguin Cafe. It's experimental ambient jazz folk, a mouthful of genres that blend together into 45 minutes and five instrumental songs. Nothing really stands out, but the music blended pleasantly into the background of our Saturday evening at home. Will I visit the Penguin Cafe again? Probably not, but it was a nice visit.
Favorite Tracks: Zopf; The Sound of Someone You Love Going Away and It Doesn't Matter; Chartered Flight
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