Electric Penguins Hotpress reviews!!

keithdowney

ELECTRIC PENGUINS Goodbye From The Electric Penguins

Electric Penguins are a trio of studio rats schooled in the broad church of electronic, ambient and general esoteric idioms. Their collective pedigree is worth noting - Mark Cummins has worked with associates of both the Floyd and Massive attack; Seán Quinn was previously signed to Eno and Roxy’s E.G. imprint and worked with Steve Hillage; Paul Murphy does TV and radio commissions in his own studio when he’s not moonlighting as a producer and fraternising with Bowie’s band.The ensemble’s debut album is, as you might expect, an accomplished adventure in not-so-modern recording. The Penguins may be numbered among a growing cabal of reactionaries bypassing generic ProTools and digital trickery in favour of analogue bump and grind (Moogs, Mellotrons and Farfisas abound).

The opening ‘Gelb’ is a quite lovely slo-mo glide between Sigur Ros ice sculptures and Edge’s 1986 Captive soundtrack (specifically ‘Rowena’s Theme’), all breathy vocals and cinemascopic piano. It’s colour coded counterpart ‘Blau’ is another beauty - slow Nyman-esque airs punctuated by sonar echo.The collective works best when the vocals are muted and the words ephemeral: ‘Supergirl’ boasts elegantly 80’s vocals and soft synth pop textures that suggest China Crisis by way of Air, ‘Lonnie’ is beguilingly moody (a little heavy on the vocoder mind), while ‘Soft Landing’ as its title suggests, is a sort of light-hearted High Llamas space-off stitched with Duane Eddy guitar.The Penguins excel at atmospheres; orthodox song structures ill become them. For instance,‘Transatlantic’ begins as a masterclass in German precision-engineered motorik and ends up as John Foxxera Ultravox robot pop.Viewed in widescreen, Goodbye From The Electric Penguins is a triumph of sound over songcraft.Next time the intrepid trio might do well to dispense with the songwriterly strictures altogether and just go with the, um, floe. For now though, this is an intriguing debut, rich in ideas and wilfully different.

HOT PRESS - 7/10



ELECTRIC PENGUINS Goodbye From The Electric Penguins

New Irish electronica outfit, Electric Penguins have delivered a debut which had a masterplan - to make a modern record using only 70’s instruments such as Moogs, Mellotrons, organs and guitars, with no samplers or sequencers.The hard work paid off, and the three Dubliners - Mark Cummins, Paul Murphy & Seán Quinn - have turned in one of the years best sets, Goodbye From The Electric Penguins.Released on Keith Downey’s highly-rated Psychonavigation stamp, the opus will appeal to anyone witheven a remote interest in electronic music, not least because of the sweetly melancholic ‘Lonnie’ and thePostal Service-esque ‘Transatlantic’

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