Penguin Café (live at the Union Chapel)

London
14 November 2023

When establishments come under new management there are sometimes doubts from the old clientèle about whether it would be as good as it was before, whether it will have the same ambience and charm or even quirkiness. Tonight, a packed house at The Union Chapel has no doubts that this revamped Penguin Café still has everything that the old one did and has added some delicious extras as well.

Arthur Jeffes is the son of the original orchestra’s founder Simon Jeffes. The Penguin Café Orchestra made their debut as part of Brian Eno’s Obscure Label back in the mid ’70s (a complete reissue of all the Obscure albums is due to be released very soon).

One of the members of the band was producer Steve Nye, who worked with David Sylvian in the ’80s (the other Japan connection is that bassist Mick Karn ran a café in early 1981 named The Penguin Café after the band). The band made several beautiful and esoteric albums up until the passing of Simon. Since then, Arthur has taken the Café in a slightly new direction, but still holding on to the elements that made the original band so interesting.

Tonight, the Union Chapel is atmospheric. As Arthur sits at his piano and begins to play, he is joined by Oli Langford and Clementine Browne on violin, Rebecca Waterworth on cello, Andy Waterworth on contrabass and Avvon Chambers on percussion. The music is sublime and slightly melancholy, tumbling over the audience like autumn leaves.

The first part of the set is dedicated to tracks from the current album Rain Before Seven…, with pieces such as “Temporary Shelter From The Storm” and “In Re Budd” (dedicated to Harold Budd) casting a spell over the audience as they hum around the old church, and the band themselves are covered in subtle red and blue lighting. Sometimes the music sounds like it could come from a gallery installation where vibrant paintings have the calm feeling of a lost summer’s afternoon. It sounds impressionistic at points and then moves to a quiet Erik Satie-esque mode of introspection; then it dances in the air around you and intoxicates.

Like all good cafés, this one still keeps a few favourites on its menu for some of the older customers. Here Arthur cherry-picks a number of his father’s compositions with some rather nice anecdotes about them. His stage banter is always good to hear; he comes across as almost nervous, but with a great sense of humour which helps the evening go by in a very relaxed kind of way.

Penguin Café Orchestra classics such as “Paul’s Dance” and “Perpetuum Mobile” are dusted off and given a wonderful fresh airing, taking the audience back in time with a collection of oddities that only the Penguin Café could get away with performing. Of course “Music For A Found Harmonium” is part of the encore, making audience members smile as it is played, to be met by rapturous applause as its final notes echo around the vast chapel into the heavens above.

What Arthur has done is give us a Café for the twenty-first century, one where the tables might be shiny and new, but where the décor still harks back to those earlier times. Arthur’s compositions are delicate and put you in a certain frame of mind as they wash over you like rain. Let’s hope the Café opens again soon so we can take shelter from the inclement weather and warm ourselves to the sound of wonderful music humming again in our ears.

-Gary Parsons-