Chamber prog outfit Penguin Cafe have shared a brand new single, Second Variety, which you can listen to below. It's been released as part of label Erased Tapes celebrations for Piano Day which, in case you didn't know, is on Wednesday, March 29.
The new single obviously has piano at its core, sparingly embellished by melodica, glockenspiel, electronics and pedal steel guitar.
"This piece came about in Italy where we’ve been staying quite a lot over the last few years," explains Penguin Cafe mainman Arthur Jeffes. "Time passes differently there – with this sense of endlessly repeating days and a kind of wistfulness stemming from knowing that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. There is a kind of peace in that, but also a feeling of time slipping through one’s hands.
"One day a musical friend from further North, Alessandro ‘Asso’ Stefana (who has worked with Mike Patton, PJ Harvey and Calexico), took advantage of a break between projects to come and visit. He brought lots of pedals and a lap steel, and we just tried things out. I ended up with a fairly sparse mix, as it captures the feeling of those days most clearly."
Second Variety is the first new music from Penguin Cafe since the 10th anniversary reissue of their debut album, titled A Matter of Life… 2021. Prior to that the band released the critically acclaimed 2019 album Handfuls Of Night, which was inspired by Jeffes’ expedition where he re-created famous explorer Scott’s last Antarctic trip in 1911.
