Half Notes: Penguin Cafe Orchestra – When In Rome (2008)

There’s never a correct genre to classify this group: They’re not classical, they’re not rock, and they’re certainly not shitty so they don’t qualify for the “new age” label under which they generally get stuck. Chamber-rock? I don’t know. I’ll quote the All Music Guide because they sum them up perfectly: “The Penguin Cafe Orchestra creates dreamlike music. It is beautiful, yet illogical, unpredictable, and often bizarre.” Yep. Think strings and guitars playing something like folky classical and jazz combined with a touch of Phillip Glass.

‘Half Notes’ are quick-take thoughts on music from Something Else! Reviews, presented whenever the mood strikes us.

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