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43-560: The Penguin Cafe Orchestra ( PCO ) were an avant-pop band led by British guitarist Simon Jeffes . Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann , the band toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass . The group recorded and performed for 24 years until Jeffes died of an inoperable brain tumour in 1997. Several members of

86-515: A reel , it was subsequently recorded by many Irish traditional musicians , including Patrick Street , De Dannan , Kevin Burke and Sharon Shannon . An Irish traditional version was used on the soundtrack of the film Hear My Song , made in Ireland in the early 1990s. In 2004, Patrick Street 's cover of "Music for a Found Harmonium" was featured in the film Napoleon Dynamite , and the following year in

129-455: A collection of dreamy pop vignettes, adorned with dubby echoes and tape-warped sonic tendrils" which would be largely ignored at the time. Other early avant-pop productions included the Beatles 's 1966 song " Tomorrow Never Knows ", which incorporated techniques from musique concrète , avant-garde composition, Indian music , and electro-acoustic sound manipulation into a 3-minute pop format, and

172-499: A member of Steeleye Span , and who played live with the Penguins in Italy in the 1980s. The name 'Anteaters' came from an incident on the 1983 PCO tour of Japan when Simon Jeffes discovered there was a craze for penguins in the country. He joked that, if the fashion changed, the orchestra would have to change its name to 'The Anteater Cafe Orchestra'. In October 2011, the same lineup appeared at

215-438: A regular lineup evolved around: Doug Beveridge also became a regular fixture at the live mixing desk. The album Concert Program (1995) is the definitive recording of this lineup, and includes many of the group's best-known pieces. After Simon Jeffes' death in 1997, the band's members continued to meet occasionally, but there were no new recordings or public appearances for over ten years. The band briefly reformed in 2007, with

258-473: A strange recurring vision, there, before me, was a concrete building like a hotel or council block. I could see into the rooms, each of which was continually scanned by an electronic eye. In the rooms were people, everyone of them preoccupied. In one room a person was looking into a mirror and in another a couple were making love but lovelessly, in a third a composer was listening to music through earphones. Around him there were banks of electronic equipment. But all

301-718: A week of spontaneous collaborations and performances. No one musician appears on every track, but Jeffes is one of the more constant presences on this album and it includes new versions of previous PCO tracks "Yodel 3" and "Cage Dead". Amongst the many other collaborators are Billy Cobham , Andy Sheppard , Jane Siberry , Ayub Ogada , Nigel Kennedy , and Nana Vasconcelos . Avant-pop "Avant-pop" has been used to label music which balances experimental or avant-garde approaches with stylistic elements from popular music, and which probes mainstream conventions of structure or form. Writer Tejumola Olaniyan describes "avant-pop music" as transgressing "the boundaries of established styles,

344-551: Is a Supported Employment Programme which provides opportunities for people who have experienced homelessness and crisis to get back into employment. There is also a Winter Night Shelter and support services such as access to therapy. Union Chapel is a Congregational church and part of the Congregational Federation . The church describes itself as "a community of Christians of diverse backgrounds committed to living lives that are spiritual, sustainable and responsive to

387-471: Is music that "re-sequences" the elements of song structure "so that (a) none of the charm of the tune is lost, but (b) this very accessibility leads one to bump into weirder elements welded into the design." The Tribeca New Music Festival defines "avant-pop" as "music that draws its energy from both popular music and classical forms." The term has elsewhere been used by literary critic Larry McCaffery to describe "the most radical, subversive literary talents of

430-522: Is uncommon among non-conformist churches, and its plan is based on the church of Santa Fosca in Torcello . It provided seating for 1,700 worshippers, and a Sunday School Hall for 1,000 children. Behind the church, the large Sunday School was built on the Akron Plan . Two Liberal prime ministers, William Ewart Gladstone and H. H. Asquith , were at different times members of the congregation. The solid tower

473-443: The television adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale . Swedish DJ Avicii sampled the main melody for his song "Fade into Darkness". 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. Another piece called "Numbers 1-4" was featured in a dance film shown on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episode 1604, when Mr. McFeely brings

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516-726: The 1968 album An Electric Storm , recorded by the electronic music group White Noise (featuring members from the U.K.’s BBC Radiophonic Workshop ), is an "undisputed masterpiece of early avant-pop". In the 1970s, progressive rock and post-punk music would see new avant-pop fusions, including the work of Pink Floyd , Genesis , Henry Cow , This Heat , and the Pop Group . More contemporary avant-pop artists have included David Sylvian , Scott Walker , and Björk , whose vocal experimentation and innovative modes of expression have seen them move beyond norms of commercial pop music. Others who have been credited as avant-pop's pioneers include

559-521: The Canterbury Festival in Kent, UK, performing two hours of original PCO music as The Orchestra That Fell To Earth. They have continued to perform under that name. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra's most famous piece may be "Telephone and Rubber Band", which is based around a tape loop of a UK telephone ring tone intersected with a reorder tone , accompanied by the twanging of a rubber band. It is featured on

602-582: The Gospel’s prophetic call for justice and peace." The church meets every Sunday at 11am and is committed to racial, economic, social and climate justice. The congregation first met in 1799 in a house in Highbury Grove as a union of evangelical Anglicans and non-conformists . Between 1805 and 1809 a new chapel was built by Henry Leroux on the present site in Compton Terrace, just off Upper Street , and

645-500: The Penguin Cafe , recorded from 1974 to 1976, was released in 1976 on Brian Eno 's experimental Obscure Records label, an offshoot of the EG label. It was followed in 1981 by Penguin Cafe Orchestra , after which the band settled into a more regular release schedule. The band gave its first major concert on 10 October 1976, supporting Kraftwerk at The Roundhouse . They went on to tour

688-819: The Penguin Cafe", later shortened to simply Penguin Cafe. 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 ). With the Penguin Cafe name now being used by Arthur, the original PCO members who wanted to continue playing their music needed an alternative name. Four of them, multiinstrumentalists Geoffrey Richardson and Jennifer Maidman, trombonist Annie Whitehead, and pianist Steve Fletcher, have since played some festivals as The Anteaters. They have been joined by percussionist Liam Genockey, well known as

731-515: The United Kingdom, and the only one in England, with a fully working original hydraulic (water powered) blowing system, which can be used as an alternative to the electric blowers. The organ was restored in 1946 by Monk & Gunther; and by Harrison & Harrison in 2013. Organ Re framed, launched in 2016, is an annual music festival at Union Chapel with an experimental approach to the use of

774-489: The Velvet Underground 's integration of La Monte Young 's minimalist and drone music ideas, beat poetry , and 1960s pop art. In late 1960s Germany, an experimental avant-pop scene dubbed " krautrock " saw influential artists such as Kraftwerk , Can , and Tangerine Dream draw inspiration from minimalism, German academic music , and Anglo-American pop-rock . According to The Quietus ' David McNamee,

817-535: The Velvet Underground's Lou Reed , singer Kate Bush , performance artist Laurie Anderson , art pop musician Spookey Ruben , and Black Dice 's Eric Copeland . As of 2017, contemporary artists working in avant-pop areas include Julia Holter , Holly Herndon and Oneohtrix Point Never . In 1979, Andrew Stiller of The Buffalo News wrote of two separate strands; "avant-garde pop", he theorised, comprised new wave music and acts like Brian Eno , Devo and Talking Heads , whereas "pop avant-garde", he deemed,

860-452: The buildings. The charity Union Chapel Project established in 1991 organises activities including gigs and events to help raise money for the building and open it up. The organ at Union Chapel was designed and built for the size and acoustics of the new Chapel building in 1877 by master organ builder Henry "Father" Willis . Neither James Cubitt, the architect of the Chapel, nor Rev Henry Allon,

903-462: The congregation moved to it in 1806. The new chapel was a two-storeyed building in the classical style with a central pediment, and with two houses on either side. A girls' school was founded in 1807 and a boys' founded in 1814. The Rev. Thomas Lewis, the father of the historian Samuel Lewis, was minister of the chapel from 1804–52, and lived next door at number 19. His successor, the Rev. Henry Allon ,

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946-498: The film It's All Gone Pete Tong . The Scottish folk rock band Rock Salt and Nails , from Shetland , also recorded a version of the song for their debut album Waves in 1993. The piece is also featured in the 2016 film, The Founder . Simon Jeffes composed music for the ballet Still Life at the Penguin Cafe , largely based on earlier compositions for the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. ( Geoffrey Richardson co-wrote one of

989-526: The lineup as featured on Concert Program (minus Julio Segovia), with Jennifer Maidman now handling Simon's guitar parts. The original members, joined onstage by Simon Jeffes's son Arthur on percussion and additional keyboards, played three sold-out shows at the Union Chapel in London. After those concerts, Arthur Jeffes wanted to form a new group without any of the original PCO members. He called it "Music from

1032-580: The meanings those styles reference, and the social norms they support or imply." Music writer Sean Albiez describes "avant-pop" as identifying idiosyncratic artists working in "a liminal space between contemporary classical music and the many popular music genres that developed in the second half of the twentieth century." He noted avant-pop's basis in experimentalism, as well its postmodern and non-hierarchical incorporation of varied genres such as pop, electronica , rock , classical , and jazz . Paul Grimstad of The Brooklyn Rail writes that avant-pop

1075-405: The minister at the time, wanted the congregation to be distracted by the sight of an organ or organist: they wanted the music itself to be the focus during worship. The organ is therefore hidden behind ornate screens under the rose window, which itself hints at the organ's importance, with its depiction of eight angels all playing different musical instruments. It is one of just two organs left in

1118-600: 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 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. After becoming disillusioned with

1161-518: The pieces.) The ballet was first performed by the Royal Ballet in 1988, and the music was released as an album under Jeffes' name. Another of the group's well-known pieces is "Perpetuum Mobile" from their 1987 album Signs of Life . It has been used in several films, television and radio programmes, including as the main theme of the Australian stop-motion animated film Mary and Max (2009), and in

1204-421: The postmodern new wave." In the 1960s, as popular music began to gain cultural importance and question its status as commercial entertainment, musicians began to look to the post-war avant-garde for inspiration. In 1959, music producer Joe Meek recorded I Hear a New World (1960), which Tiny Mix Tapes ' Jonathan Patrick calls a "seminal moment in both electronic music and avant-pop history [...]

1247-455: The quality of randomness, spontaneity, surprise, unexpectedness and irrationality in our lives is a very precious thing. And if you suppress that to have a nice orderly life, you kill off what's most important. Whereas in the Penguin Cafe your unconscious can just be. It's acceptable there, and that's how everybody is. There is an acceptance there that has to do with living the present with no fear in ourselves. The group's debut album, Music from

1290-441: The rigid structures of classical music and the limitations of rock , in which he also dabbled, Simon Jeffes became interested in the relative freedom in folk music and decided to imbue his work with the same immediacy and spirit. Describing how the idea of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra came to him, Jeffes said: In 1972 I was in the south of France. I had eaten some bad fish and was in consequence rather ill. As I lay in bed I had

1333-618: The solo improvisations of Terry Riley . Union Chapel, Islington Union Chapel is a working Congregational church , live-entertainment venue and charity drop-in centre for the homeless in Islington , London, England. Built in the late 19th century in the Gothic revival style, the church is a Grade I-listed building. It is at the north end of Upper Street , near Highbury Fields . Union Chapel hosts live music, film, spoken word and comedy events. There are around 250 events per year. It

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1376-528: The soundtracks of Nadia Tass 's film comedy Malcolm (1986) and Oliver Stone's film Talk Radio (1988), and in a long-running advertising campaign for the telecoms company One2One (now EE ). The 1996 single " In the Meantime " by New York City-based British rockers Spacehog featured a tweaked and detuned sample of "Telephone and Rubber Band". It was also the trademark song of Caloi en su tinta, an Argentinean TV show about artistic animation. The tape loop

1419-439: The studio, including an occasional 'dance orchestra' and a quintet of strings, oboe, trombone and himself on piano. On the studio albums, he sometimes played several instruments, and brought in other musicians according to the needs of each piece. There were a number of incarnations of the live band. Original members Gavyn Wright and Steve Nye left in 1984 and 1988 respectively. Bob Loveday replaced Gavyn Wright on violin. Gradually

1462-409: The summer of 1982 after the ensemble's first tour of Japan . He wrote that after installing the found harmonium "in a friend's house in one of the most beautiful parts at the edge of the city," he "frequently visited this instrument during the next few months, and I remember the time fondly as one during which I was under a form of enchantment with the place and the time." "Music for a Found Harmonium"

1505-633: The video in to show. The film featured dancers from Pittsburgh's Dance Alloy , who used fitness balls in the dance. A number of pieces including "Numbers 1-4", "Perpetuum Mobile" and "Music for A Found Harmonium" were included on the soundtrack of the Channel 4 documentary series Road Dreams . Arcane consists of recordings by diverse musicians brought together in August 1992 at the Real World studios in Wiltshire for

1548-640: The world and play at a variety of music festivals as well as residencies on the South Bank in London. From 1976 to 1996 they played in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, and throughout Europe and the UK. In March 1987, they were the subject of an episode of the ITV arts series The South Bank Show , where they performed "Air", "Bean Fields", "Dirt" and "Giles Farnaby's Dream". Simon Jeffes experimented with various configurations live and in

1591-463: Was "a popularization of the indeterminacy cum electronics so widespread among classical composers a decade ago". He counted recent works by Vangelis , Heldon and Bruce Ditmas as examples of the latter, and wrote that it originated in the 1960s counterculture 's "notions of universal amateurism" with pieces like the Doors ' " Horse Latitudes " (1967), the Beatles' " Revolution 9 " (1968) and, later,

1634-467: Was completed in 1889. The chapel building was first listed in 1972 and is Grade I listed. The former Sunday school, lecture hall and vestry block was separately Grade II* listed in 2011. The chapel was used for a major scene in the 1982 film, Who Dares Wins . In 1981 the charity Friends of Union was founded in response to attempts to demolish the church. Since then the Friends have worked to preserve

1677-504: Was minister from 1852 to 1892 and greatly increased the congregation as the local population grew. The building became "inconveniently crowded", and by the 1870s the Chapel had been enlarged and given a colonnaded façade . It was replaced by the current building in the Victorian gothic style of architecture, designed by James Cubitt of Loughton and built between 1874 and 1877, with further additions from 1877 to 1890. Its Gothic style

1720-495: Was recorded when Jeffes was making a phone call and discovered he was hearing a combination of a ring tone and an engaged signal due to a fault in the system. He recorded it on an answering machine. Another famous tune featured in Malcolm (among other films) is "Music for a Found Harmonium", which Jeffes wrote on a harmonium he had found in a back street in Kyoto , where he was staying in

1763-414: Was silence. Like everyone in his place he had been neutralized, made grey and anonymous. The scene was for me one of ordered desolation. It was as if I were looking into a place which had no heart. Next day when I felt better, I was on the beach sunbathing and suddenly a poem popped into my head. It started out 'I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe, I will tell you things at random' and it went on about how

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1806-484: Was used in the trailer for, and over the end credits of, the 1988 John Hughes movie She's Having a Baby . In the credits, many film actors and celebrities of the time invent their favourite name for an imagined child. (It was not included in the soundtrack released from the movie.) "Music for a Found Harmonium" gained exposure when it was released on the first Café del Mar volume in 1994. Because its rhythm, tempo and simple structure made it suitable for adaptation as

1849-499: Was voted London's Best Live Music Venue by readers of Time Out magazine in 2002, 2012 and again in 2014. It has a reputation for excellent acoustics, due to its design. The Margins Project, based in the Union Chapel, provides a range of support services to people facing homelessness, crisis and isolation. It operates a twice-weekly drop-in that provides advice around accessing benefits, support showers and laundry facilities. There

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