Photo: Mark Gregson

With their much-anticipated seventh album Necessary Fictions arriving next month, and following the mesmerizing lead single ‘Fallowfield Loops’, GoGo Penguin have unveiled a second single, ‘What We Are and What We Are Meant to Be’. The previous single introduced us to the album’s expanded textures and modular synth explorations, and their new offering pushes even further into the band’s present mindset. Stripped of improvisation and driven by a steady, dance-influenced bass synth, it’s perhaps their most direct and unadorned piece to date. As bassist Nick Blacka puts it, “It’s really simple, really melodic”, continuing:

“It’s not showboating, like ‘Hey, look at all the chops we’ve got, and how great we are!’ There’s not even any improvisation in it. Bass-wise, it’s just got a bass synth like a dance track. There’s still a part of me that’s like, ‘What are people going to think?’ Then there’s another part that just thinks, ‘Fuck it, they can think what they want! This is what we want to make right now, and it feels authentic.’”

Alongside the new single, the Manchester trio shared an accompanying video directed by longtime collaborator Rich Williams. Watch the video below and get ready for Necessary Fictions, out on June 20th through XXIM/Sony.

Photo: Mark Gregson

GoGo Penguin have just announced a brand new album and we couldn’t be more excited. The trio of Chris Illingworth, Nick Blacka and Jon Scott will release Necessary Fictions on June 20th through XXIM/Sony. Marking their seventh long-player, the upcoming record feels like both a return to their essence and a leap into bold, uncharted sonic territory. Over the last decade, they’ve consistently blurred the lines between jazz, classical and electronic music, and Necessary Fictions continues in that spirit, but with new textures and bolder moves. As Blacka puts it, they were trying to get to “our integral, authentic qualities at this moment in time.” One of the major shifts is the embrace of modular synthesizers, not as novelty, but as an extension of their sound. “There had to be a reason,” Illingworth explains. “And for us that was knowing that in places we wanted the character of the music to shift.”

Much of the record was written and recorded in their Manchester studio, which they reshaped into a creative sanctuary, with artwork and photos pinned to the walls for inspiration. Illingworth and Blacka were there nearly every day for a year, with Scott, who lives in London, joining in when the rhythm sections were ready for his input. There’s a real sense of joy in how they talk about the process – “I was very aware of smiling a lot in the studio while we were making it,” says Illingworth. “And I’m smiling now just thinking about it.”

The title, Necessary Fictions, comes from James Hollis’ book The Middle Passage, which explores ideas of the shadow self and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of who we are. Blacka, who was reading the book, says it presents “very Jungian stuff about the shadow self, and hidden personae. You begin to think, ‘Hang on, there’s an authentic me, deep down in there somewhere!’” He continues:

“Musically, it’s been the same journey, the same process of ditching some of the things we’d got used to doing which were holding us back. We’d be writing tracks in the past where we’d be hesitant, like, ‘But what are people going to think? Aren’t we supposed to be this jazz trio who are not really jazz? Who play electronic-type music on acoustic instruments and it’s all very fast and frenetic?’”

Alongside the album announcement, GoGo Penguin shared the mesmerizing lead single ‘Fallowfield Loops’, an exhilarating first taste of what’s to come, and we can’t wait to hear the full album in June. Check out the video the accompanies the track below.

Following the transcendent ‘Glimmerings‘ and the majestic ‘Saturnine’, GoGo Penguin have now revealed ‘Friday Film Special’, the third sublime single from their forthcoming new album Everything Is Going to Be OK. A low-fi track, ‘Friday Film Special’ is inspired by DJ Shadow’s seminal album Entroducing….., and bassist Nick Blacka had this to say about it:

“Chris and I have been big fans of hip hop and instrumental hip hop albums for many years and it’s something that we haven’t had much chance to explore before with GoGo Penguin. Albums such as DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing were a huge influence on us when we were young and Friday Film Special really tips its cap to the hip hop instrumentals that we’d grown up loving. We were both into skateboarding as kids and I think we wanted to capture a nostalgic throwback to those times.

I remember being incredibly young and asking my older brother what he was watching one day, and he said, ‘Friday Film Special’. Friday Film Specials were a series of films made by the Children’s Film Foundation and were on TV every Friday in the mid to late 80s. Even at the time, they felt old because most of them were made in the 1970s, so all the kids were wearing flares. It’s one of the most retro and nostalgic things I could think of.”

Listen to ‘Friday Film Special’ below and grab the album when it’s out on April 14th through Sony Music/XXIM.

Photo: Veil Projects, Emily Dennison

Last month GoGo Penguin announced the release of their new album Everything Is Going to Be OK and shared the transcendent first single ‘Glimmerings‘. Now the incredible and quirky jazz trio are enticing us again with a majestic new cut from the album called ‘Saturnine’. Of the track, the band comments:

“In our studio we have a lucky cat, like the ones you sometimes see in Chinese restaurants. Its arm makes a clicking sound when it waves, reminiscent of a metronome. It was a strange place to find inspiration, but it was just what we needed for this track. The title felt apt as one day we were discussing it and Chris mentioned how he felt it sounded a bit sad and melancholic. It hadn’t really occurred to me up until this point as I was more focused on it sounding quite bouncy and poppy to my ears. I think it’s a bit of both, but we find it’s fascinating that we can be working on the same track at the same time and yet experience it differently whilst doing so.”

Listen to ‘Saturnine’ below and grab the album when it’s out on April 14th through Sony Music/XXIM.

Photo: Veil Projects, Emily Dennison

New music from GoGo Penguin is always exciting news. The trio, who last year welcomed a new drummer to the fold and released an EP, Between Two Waves, have announced a new full-length album. Entitled Everything Is Going to Be OK, the effort arrives on April 14th through Sony Music/XXIM.

Alongside the announcement, GoGo Penguin have shared the first transcendent single, ‘Glimmerings’, a track inspired by British Professor Anil Seth’s book Being You. Bassist Nick Blacka comments:

“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.”

Listen to ‘Glimmerings’ below.

Photo: Emily Dennison

Last July GoGo Penguin gifted us with their magnificent Between Two Waves EP. Now the incredible and quirky jazz trio are following it with a stunning new track called ‘Erased by Sunlight’, which was recorded a mere a couple of months ago at Real World Studios, where they had also recorded the EP. Speaking about the track, pianist Chris Illingworth comments:

“Often, following your instincts can be the right thing to do, sometimes what feels like instinct can be the years of experience pushing you quickly in the right direction. But sometimes it’s fun to feel those instincts and see what happens when you go down another path, moving away from the road that seems obvious. That’s how this new track found its initial sound, a few musical fragments discovered through exploring ideas that may have been ignored or never found which we then used as a new starting point, allowing instinct to kick back in, leading us to Erased by Sunlight.”

‘Erased by Sunlight’ is out now through XXIM Records/Sony and you can listen to it below.

In other related news, GoGo Penguin have announced several live dates in the UK/EU this Autumn, taking in shows in Paris, Berlin, London, Athens and Amsterdam, amongst many other cities. Head over here to check all their stops.