Everything Is Going To Be Ok

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GoGo Penguin shirks tradition, fusing the elements of jazz with classical influences and the charging, repetitive beats of electronica” Chris: I started playing piano quite early, around the age of 8, and after seeing a classical piano concert with my parents I apparently said to them ‘that’s what I want to do when I’m older’. I wasn’t really thinking about a career in music at that age, it was just a dream as a kid like saying you want to be a spaceman or a ninja or whatever, but as I kept learning and becoming more obsessed with music it became a real career goal and I knew there was nothing else I’d rather do. Indeed, while the music on Everything Is Going To Be OK contains jazzy elements — there’s improvisation, the upright bass is often prominent, and the rhythms sometimes swing — there are so many other things going on that it’s almost impossible to categorize them. A piece like “Friday Film Special” owes more to DJ Shadow than to Brad Mehldau, and “Soon Comes Night” lays a pulsing electronic filter over the keyboard and blasts Scott’s drums through a wash of static and noise.

NEW ALBUM BURSTS WITH NEW BEGINNINGS AFTER PERIOD OF TURMOIL, DEEP PERSONAL LOSS AND MOURNING, BAND’S TEMPORARY SHAKEUP AND RE-FORMATION It felt right, the music was great and we just went with it,” Chris says of the album. “I don’t think we’d have had these ideas a few years ago. And if we had, we probably wouldn’t have embraced them in the same way.” GoGo Penguin is a piano-trio from Manchester, UK. Formed in 2012, the trio’s sophomore album v2.0 was nominated in 2014 for the Mercury Music Prize and in 2016, the trio signed to Blue Note Records, releasing a trio of acclaimed albums: Man Made Object, A Humdrum Star and GoGo Penguin, as well as two EPS and a remix album GGP/RMX. They were Blue Note’s best-selling contemporary instrumental artists and sold over 300,000 albums.

Press Release

GoGo Penguin on their sixth full-length: where they've previously had a pattern of evocative titles and vaguely futuristic abstract covers, this one (at first glance) looks and reads almost like a greeting card. This also comes after one-third of the trio changed with 2022's interim EP, Between Two Waves (Sony/XXIM). Underneath the wrapping, though, it's recognizably the same evolving not-jazz-not-techno mix that they've made into their own niche, even when taking time to touch grass (or just watch the birds) for a while. The album studio time offered the band a sanctuary from real life, and the resulting project draws its strength from a shared understanding and empathy, with a truly vibrant and hopeful sonic direction. Life has many great aspects to it and despite the lows, we should be mindful and grateful to celebrate the highs at every turn. Through our hardships, together, we will emerge stronger; everything is going to be ok. After finding your love for creativity and music, how did that manifest into wanting to make a career out of it? GoGo Penguin… is also an experiment in repetitions and possibilities….It’s highly mathematical counterpoint that still feels improvised.”

Integrating the technology seamlessly into their piano and bass arrangements was a key part of the record. This approach also came amid a slew of material where the presence of the unofficial members really reaped rewards in editing and arranging. The crisp friction of this genre-pushing trio largely sets the sound-profile for the record as a whole, inviting the listener to contemplate the meaning of the ensemble’s experimental timbres within the familiarity of the syncopated hypergrooves for which they have come to be known. Through a melange of analogue and digital techniques, each player develops the sonic possibilities of their primarily acoustic instruments in the same manner EDM producers may approach new modular rhythms and synth patches. In GoGo Penguin’s case, however, this allows the group to pursue their electronic influences without always resorting to the use of electronic devices themselves. From an audible perspective, the most striking element of this recording arrives in the form of the sonic evolution the group has undergone, especially Chris Illingsworth’s piano by way of the Palm Mute Pedal (followers of Nils Frahm will be familiar with this particular appliance already). Similar to pressing a finger on the string, this piece of kit allows the player to apply a long strip of felt over vast stretches of the piano’s strings, producing a sonic effect that combines a restrained feathery pizzicato tone with an elongated harplike sustain. It is painstakingly difficult to be an instrumental act and to succeed within the popular music sphere. Many listeners tend to shun purely instrumental music, perhaps finding it less relatable or stimulating in comparison to a good old fashioned pop song. The instrumental acts that do triumph tend to have something undeniable about them – a way of speaking without words. There’s not many better sonic conversationalists than GoGo Penguin. People have always got to find their own things in it and take what they need,” says Chris. “It’s nice that the music makes them feel positive although, from our side, nothing is ever too rigid. There’s an openness to our music which we like to explore and evolve.” Image: Rich WilliamsAre GoGo Penguin jazz? Their first album, Fanfares, came out just over a decade ago, in November 2012; it was released on Gondwana, a label run by trumpeter Matthew Halsall, whose own music is quite beautiful spiritual jazz. They stayed with Gondwana for their 2014 breakthrough release, v2.0, but then signed with Blue Note for 2016’s Man Made Object, 2018’s A Humdrum Star, and 2020’s self-titled release, which was followed the next year by the remix album GGP/RMX.

Everything Is Going to Be OK was born during a time of turbulence and loss. Recorded in a personally difficult period for the band, which included deep personal loss and mourning, the album studio time offered the band a sanctuary from real life. The resulting project draws its strength from a shared understanding and empathy, with a truly vibrant and hopeful sonic.. Life has many great aspects to it and despite the lows, we should be mindful and grateful to celebrate the highs at every turn. Through our hardships, together, we will emerge stronger; everything is going to be ok. Coming into a group with the public profile of GoGo Penguin brings with it a certain amount of pressure to perform, something the drummer admits to feeling. “I’ve joined a lot of bands over the years, but generally in a context where you’re a little bit more anonymous, and to come into a situation where it’s three distinct personalities who all shape the music…yeah, that’s a thing, and there are obviously fans of the band who really know [the older material] intimately, so it’s a psychological landscape to deal with.” Berlin, January 20, 2023 – Today, UK-based cinematic break-beat trio GoGo Penguin announce their forthcoming new album Everything Is Going to Be OK (April 14, SONY MUSIC/XXIM Records), a sonically liberated new direction for the band, born of a period of deep personal loss, mourning, and triumph. Emerging in 2012 from Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, GoGo Penguin’s ascent has been propelled by their studio ingenuity and captivating live show. Obscuring musical lines between jazz, breakbeat and classical concepts, their songs are beautifully crafted but continue to nip and pull at the frays of various styles. Image: Rich WilliamsTheir artistry has seen a devoted global following continue to gather around them. In September 2014, their second album v2.0 was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize Album of the Year. Then, the band signed to the legendary Blue Note Records for their critically-acclaimed Man Made Object record in 2016. Now with a new drummer Jon Scott and an enhanced electronic sensibility, the band are working closely with Joe and producer Brendan Williams to refine how they operate in the studio. The word glimmerings stood out when I was reading a book by Anil Seth called ‘Being You’. The book is about the science of consciousness and in the Prologue, he talks about how ‘glimmerings of ideas began to emerge’. It felt like the perfect way to describe the process of thought and creativity. Glimmerings — one of the first songs we started on the new album – started from a small kernel on the synth and over time we added more and more layers until it became something a lot more complex. The idea behind the title is the very beginning, where there is only an idea and an intent to start with, but you have an aim and an idea, and you have to trust in the process.” It’s this contrast between the organic and synthetic that summarises the core message of the album. As AI, facial recognition and other pernicious technologies assume an insidious role within our day-to-day lives, what freedoms are to be lost, creative, spiritual or otherwise? On the other hand, what, in this time of authorial dispute, can artists reclaim? Glimmerings was one of the first tunes that we began to work on when preparing ideas for a new album. The word glimmerings stood out when I was reading a book by Anil Seth called ‘Being You’. The book is about the science of consciousness and in the Prologue, he talks about how ‘glimmerings of ideas began to emerge’. It felt like the perfect way to describe the process of thought and creativity. Glimmerings started from a small kernel on the synth and over time we added more and more layers until it became something a lot more complex. The idea behind the title is the very beginning, where there is only an idea and an intent to start with, but you have an aim and an idea for where it’s going to take you and you have to trust in the process and yourself to see where that process will lead you”. People have always got to find their own things from it and take what they need. It’s nice that the music makes them feel positive although from our side, nothing is ever too rigid. There’s an openness to our music which we like to explore and evolve.”