Completing My Penguin Cafe Collection

I am so excited to have achieved a new musical milestone, having assembled a complete collection of all full-length studio releases issued in the vinyl format by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and their later incarnation, The Penguin Cafe. This includes the first-ever vinyl edition of The Penguin Cafe’s 2011 debut, A Matter of Life, issued by Erased Tapes on May 6, 2022. 

I’ve previously written about my adoration of this fine ensemble back in 2017, where I summed up the beauty of their music thusly: 

The music of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra is tranquil, eclectic, and magically pastoral. The albums are classified as works of minimalism but are impressively dynamic recordings. Rich with subtly and understatedly intricate instrumentation, their music is a seamless and masterful blending of an impressive roster of genres, weaving together classical and contemporary elements. The result is magical and elegantly surreal. 

These records are stubbornly difficult to label or classify. Spanning a broad range of influences from classical to jazz, featuring middle eastern or perhaps Indian inspired drones, as well as Cajan, traditional folk melodies, African rhythms, and more, these elements blend seamlessly into marvelous soundscapes and musical vignettes reminiscent of Moondog’s symphoniques. 

There is a timeless serenity to these recordings, and I’m grateful that I was at last ready to let them into my life at a time when they served as a sensational complement to my headspace of late. 

From start to finish, The Penguin Cafe is a treasure of heady and engaging arrangements, and some of the most peaceful sounds you’ll ever hear. I really enjoyed an observation from a fellow listener named bpnicast who remarked, “The dispassionate, cerebral atmosphere here creates its own unique space that seems to slow time and demand hushed attention – an emotional connection achieved through stillness and abstraction.” 

That is precisely what I enjoy about these albums. It will be a pleasure to play them again and again and to share them with those who bring joy into my life.

Brian Eno Collection Milestone

Today I’ve proudly reached a milestone with my Brian Eno collection. In addition to the dozens of art prints, books, lithographs, 85 digital releases, and other miscellanea I’ve acquired, I’ve now successfully built a sizable library of most major releases issued in the vinyl format by the artist. 

While there are still a number of bootlegs and collaborative efforts, as well as titles from Eno’s catalog originally issued in the 90s now being released for the first time on vinyl, my library comprises 40 of his best-loved works totaling 64 discs of content, including the highly sought-after Music For Installations 9LP limited edition box set.

This feature will showcase the most noteworthy elements of my collection to date. I’ll begin with the LPs, themselves. It was quite a challenge to photograph 40 12” multi-disc releases all in one shot, particularly without photographer’s lamps and other equipment, but I’ve done my best using the trusty digital SLR I received from my family when I first started art college twenty-two years ago.

Here are the LPs:

Next, for some art, here is the “Electric Love Blueprint – A History of Electronic Music” theremin schematic created by the Dorothy design collective. The infographic “celebrates over 200 inventors, innovators, artists, composers and musicians who (in our opinion) have been pivotal to the evolution of electronic music, from the invention of the earliest known sound recording device in 1857 to the present day.” Of course, Brian Eno’s name appears typeset in the largest point size of any pioneer cited among the layout.

The 60 x 80 cm art print is printed with metallic silver ink on 120gsm Keaykolour Royal Blue uncoated stock. It was gifted to me by a dear friend and hangs proudly in my listening room.

Next is a limited edition oversized promotional art print for Eno’s 77 Million Paintings exhibition at Moogfest in 2011.

And just for fun, I had a t-shirt printed up with the art from one of the most influential early Eno solo albums, Before and After Science.

I also made sure to track down an original UK pressing of that very album specifically for the large lithographs exclusive to that edition painted by Peter Schmidt. I had the lithographs professionally framed for my dining room.

I also secured both original and remastered pressings of Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks. The Extended Edition includes the For All Mankind bonus LP and I was among the first 250 to order which got me a handsome 42cm x 59cm poster of the Apollo cover artwork which I had framed as well.

I was similarly inspired by Eno’s pioneering ambient effort, Music For Airports, so I prepared a framed print of the sheet music of the album’s score.

Then there is the DVD collecting Eno’s experiments with film, Thursday Afternoon (1984) and Mistaken Memories of Mediaeval Manhattan (1981)

I’ve previously shared my excitement when I learned that Eno had collaborated with one of my other musical heroes, Karl Hyde of Underworld. I framed the pair of postcards included with their two album releases.

There was also an art print included with original pressings of Eno and Hyde’s first collaboration, Someday World, which I’ve framed in my listening room.

And while working as a designer, I independently produced a 24” x 24” oversized PVC-mounted vinyl print of a graphic I designed mapping a chronology of all of Eno’s creative works both as an artist and as a producer. Here is a web-friendly downscaled copy of the artwork with a magnified sample of an area of text.

Of course, what Eno collection would be complete without an edition of the Oblique Strategies oracle deck? 

And finally, here is my library of thirteen books examining the mind and the art of Brian Eno. It was great fun compiling them all, including a copy of Eno’s own diary, A Year With Swollen Appendices.

That is the collection to date. I know that it is far from complete. My research reveals an additional 14 vinyl releases far more rare than anything I have and nearly 2,600 releases with Eno named in the credits, but I made sure to collect all of the titles which were of great significance to me, personally. 

Thank you for permitting me to share my love for great music. Eno and his work are an unparalleled inspiration in my life.

40 Years of Underworld – The Innerspace Collection

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a tremendous fan of the electronic duo Underworld.

At age 15, their album Dubnobasswithmyheadman was my very first exposure to the world beyond Top 40 radio pop, and its award-winning typographical packaging created by the band’s critically acclaimed Tomato design collective directly inspired my pursuit of a design degree and an 18-year career in the field.

Checking my latest stats, my Underworld collection now comprises 77 physical releases and artifacts, memorabilia, subway posters, books, prints, magazine articles, DVDs, VHS tapes, etc, as well as over 600 digital albums, EPs, mixes, concerts, and other materials – over 8100 tracks including concert videos. With new material being released every week, they’re showing no sign of slowing down, and they continue to expand my scope of musical appreciation with each new release.

Here is the physical portion of my collection to date. (For scale, the green print at the center is a subway poster from the UK measuring five feet in height.)

Below is an itemized inventory of the physical collection. The 8100-track digital library is too large to post here but is itemized in the Innerspace Labs Workbook previously published in this journal.

Artist	Title	Format
Screen Gemz	Teenage Teenage b/w I Just Can’t Stand Cars 7″ single (sleeve reproduction)	7″, Single
Freur	Matters Of The Heart	7″
Freur	Get Us Out Of Here	LP, Album
Freur	Look In The Back For Answers	12″
Freur	Doot Doot	CD
Freur	Doot-Doot	7″, Pic
Freur	Doot-Doot	12″
Freur	Doot-Doot	12″
Freur	Runaway (Dun Difrunt)	12″
Freur	Doot-Doot	LP, Album
Underworld	Going Overground Melody Maker Magazine January 22, 1994	Magazine
Underworld	Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future	LP, Album
Underworld	Spikee / Dogman Go Woof	12″, Single
Underworld	Beaucoup Fish	2xLP, Album
Underworld	A Hundred Days Off	2xLP, Album
Underworld	A Hundred Days Off	2xLP, Album
Underworld	Born Slippy	12″, Single
Underworld	Dark & Long	12″, RE
Underworld	Two Months Off	12″
Underworld	Second Toughest In The Infants	2xLP, Album
Underworld	Rez / Cowgirl	12″
Underworld	Stand Up	12″, Maxi
Underworld	Glory! Glory!	12″, Single
Underworld	Underneath The Radar	Cassette
Underworld	Underneath The Radar	7″, Single
Underworld	Change The Weather	LP, Album
Underworld	Long Slow Slippy / Eventually But	12″, Ltd, S/Edition
Underworld	Barking	2xLP, Album
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman	5CD Box Set
Underworld	Underneath The Radar	LP, Album
Underworld	Underneath The Radar	LP, Album
Underworld	Cowgirl / Rez	12″, Ltd, Whi
Underworld	Pearl’s Girl	12″
Underworld	Jumbo	12″, Single
Darren Emerson	Global Underground 020: Singapore	2CD
Darren Emerson & Tim Deluxe	Underwater, Episode 1	2CD
Underworld	Videos 1993-97 Footwear Repairs By Craftsmen At Competitive Prices	VHS
Underworld	tomato: onyx pearls	DVD
Underworld	Underworld Live – Everything Everything	DVD
Underworld	Barking (Super Deluxe Edition 2CD+DVD+book+autographed print)	2CD+DVD Box Set
Underworld	1992-2002	2CD
Underworld	Born Slippy	CD
Underworld	Change the Weather	CD
Underworld	Dinosaur Adventure 3D (US)	CD
Underworld	Dinosaur Adventure 3D (JAPAN)	CD
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman	CD
Underworld	A Hundred Days Off	CD
Underworld	King of Snake	CD
Underworld	Pearl’s Girl	CD
Underworld	Second Toughest in the Infants	CD
Underworld	Underneath the Radar	CD
Underworld	Underworld Singles Box Set	3CD Box Set
Underworld	Limited Edition Barking Art Print (Hand numbered #64/650)	Art Print
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman A2 sized Promo Poster	Poster
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman Concert Tour Memorabilia Keyring	Keyring
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman T-Shirt (unofficial)	T-Shirt
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman Coffee Mug (unofficial)	Coffee Mug
Underworld	Dubnoboasswithmyheadman Custom Chromebook Skin and Keyboard Inlay	Laptop Skin (Custom)
Underworld	Everything Everything 150cm x 100cm UK Subway Poster	Poster
Underworld	Underworld Press Photo	Photo
Underworld	Rowla/Juanita	12″
Underworld	Oblivion With Bells	2xLP, Album
Underworld	Dubnobasswithmyheadman	2LP, Album
Underworld	Second Toughest in the Infants Remastered Super Deluxe Edition	4CD Box Set
Underworld	Beaucoup Fish Remastered Super Deluxe Edition	4CD Box Set
Underworld and Iggy Pop	Teatime Dub Encounters	LP, EP, Limited Edition, Clear
Underworld	Drift Series 1	7CD+Blu-Ray DVD Box Set
Tomato	mmm.. skyscraper i love you: A Typographical Journal of New York	Art Book
Tomato	Process: A Tomato Project	Art Book
Eno • Hyde	Someday World	2xLP, Album, S/Edition
Eno • Hyde	Someday World	2xLP, Album, S/Edition
Eno • Hyde	High Life	2xLP, Album
Eno • Hyde	Someday World 12″ x 12″ Art Print	Art Print
Eno • Hyde	Brian Eno and Karl Hyde with Flowers in Vase Against White Background Postcard	Postcard
Eno • Hyde	Brian Eno and Karl Hyde on Stage Before a Concert	Postcard
Karl Hyde	Edgeland	2xLP, Album, 180
Karl Hyde	Personal Live Photograph	Photograph

Supplemental Note:

Following the acquisition of the final four Underworld multi-disc super-deluxe box sets for my archival project, I found that my collection had outgrown its space in my record room and I wanted a storage solution which would blend seamlessly with my vintage decor. I took careful measurements and trekked to my city’s antique mall and found a large antique wooden crate the exact dimensions (to the very inch!) that I was hoping to find.

It’s a perfect vintage solution to house my collection of nearly eighty Underworld releases! The sturdy wooden crate features weathered stamping for 120lbs of (Ben) Franklin brand sugar. Here it is in my home, fitted appropriately beneath a framed promotional print of my favorite album by the duo.

A Tour of the Listening Room!

My birthday is fast-approaching, and as you would suspect, I am impossible to shop for.  Despite this challenge, my fiance has successfully surprised and delighted me with her creative gifts more and more with each passing year.

This year I had more than once wondered aloud how much I would love a 2-row record bin to flip through my collection record store style.  But, as other household expenses have always taken precedence, I’d never gone ahead and ordered one.

But yesterday, my fiance with her thrifty eagle eye spotted a wood-framed beer cooler roadside with a large rectangular aluminum-lined cavity that, as luck would have it, measures precisely wide enough for two deep rows of polybagged LPs!  It even has an additional shelf underneath for oversize box sets!

It’s been so long since I’ve done a video, and this new acquisition seemed the perfect opportunity for an updated tour of my listening room.

Note: I neglected to mention in the video – Underworld’s quintessential album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman is not missing from the collection I present – it is framed on the wall opposite the Eno • Hyde Someday World art print!

A few of the unmentioned items featured include:

Atop the Bookshelf:
William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops Box Set
Cyril Ritchard Reads Alice in Wonderland + Facsimile Clothbound HC of the first edition
Tangerine Dream – In the Beginning…
Tom Waits – Orphans
Underworld – Dubnobasswithmyheadman Super Deluxe Anniversary Ed.
Underworld – Barking Super Deluxe Ed.
20 Years of Jethro Tull: The Definitive Collection
The Motown Story: The First Decade
Miles Davis at the Fillmore Box Set
Harmonia – Complete Works

Atop the Jazz/20th Century Avant-Garde/Funk & Soul/Blues/ and Proto Electronic Shelf:
Klaus Schulze + Pete Namlook – The Dark Side of the Moog Vol I-IV
Music From Some Guys in Space (Fan-Made Box Set)
FAX +49-69/45046 / Carpe Sonum – Die Welt Ist Klang: A Tribute to Pete Namlook
Lemon Jelly – lemonjelly.ky
Lemon Jelly – Lost Horizons
Lemon Jelly – ’64-’95 DVD box
The KLF Recovered & Remastered Collection (with new titles I’ll be featuring soon!)
and the Buckner & Garcia – “Pac-Man Fever” square pic disc

As for the contents of the record bin; I think I covered each of these in the vid… but let me know if you’re wondering about any titles in particular!

Thanks so much for watching and extra-special thanks to my dear fiance for doing the impossible year after year!

 

Electric Eclectics

Added three more classic albums to my library!

First I spotted Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman at a flea market.

If you’re not familiar with the album, it’s got some great Moog tunes, including a track that Beck sampled on his album, Odelay.  The first few seconds of the track should be instantly familiar.

Here’s “The Moog and Me.”

Next up I found a copy of a double LP Underworld album missing from my vinyl collection at a great price (and in the States, no less) so I couldn’t resist ordering it.

Beaucoup Fish came out in 1998/99 and includes both cerebral headphone tunes (such as “Winjer”) and floor-stomping concert-encore anthems like “Moaner.”

But I saved the best for last.  I’ve been on the look out for modal and more downtempo works by Miles Davis as I better acquaint myself with his catalog.  In a local record shop I passed a repressing of an album called In a Silent Way.

The title had “ambient” potential so I went home and looked it up.  Ten minutes into side B I was tracking down a mint first pressing on the Web.

Astonishingly, I found a man who had purchased a copy in 1969 when it came out, played it for a few minutes on his turntable, and then shelved it for 43 years because he thought it was, “boring!”

Have a listen to the title track from side B.

And watch for the funky little bass line that creeps up on you at 08:18.  I think that was the moment when I smiled and said, “it will be mine.”

Treasures Untold

Between my recent motherboard failure and setting up the replacement PC my stepfather so generously donated to me, I’ve picked up a lot of vinyl that didn’t make it to my blog.  I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some of the better ones that I’ve neglected.

First, I found Funkadelic’s Electric Spanking of War Babies in NM shape at an antique shop.  It is another outstanding example of Pedro Bell’s artwork.

The next item I picked up was the first album to feature regenerative tape loops which Robert Fripp and Brian Eno dubbed ‘Frippertronics.’  The album is an ambient classic – No Pussyfooting.

Side A is the standout track at over 20 minutes in length, titled “The Heavenly Music Corporation.”

I insist on tracking down original pressings whenever possible, and I was lucky to find an extremely clean copy at a great price.

And thanks to my friend Brrrn and good timing at a flea market, two more early Eno recordings fell into my hands.  One was Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) – Eno’s second solo album and the other was a long-time favorite collaboration with Harold Budd titled Ambient 2 – Plateaux of Mirror.  Plateaux was one of my first digital ambient albums many years ago.

The next treasure is a deep cut, and one of historical significance.  I was exploring The Orb’s catalog and read about a curious track called “The Blue Room,” a 17 minute song which appeared on the album u.f.orb.  What I discovered was that the original single was in fact 40:00 long.

From Wiki:

The UK charts had recently decided that any release with more than 40 minutes of play would be classified as an album rather than single. The Orb thus decided to record a 39:57 version of “Blue Room” for a special release. “Blue Room” is the longest single to ever reach the UK charts, peaking at number eight.

If you have ANY interest in ambient house, you need to hear this song.

The last find in the spectrum of ambient music was a dollar bin neoclassical LP by David Lanz.  Nightfall is one of his best works.

There were several other discoveries including a number of Yes albums previously missing from my collection and Zappa’s Hot Rats which features wonderful contributions from Don Van Vliet.

Last but most certainly not least, I found a number of Sesame Street albums to add to my Jim Henson library.  It’s getting harder and harder to find ones I don’t already have, (over 40 at last count) so these were a treat.

The Ernie LP is extra special.  Mint in shrink, it includes some of my most beloved memories from the Street – “Rubber Duckie,” “Imagination,” “I Don’t Want to Live On The Moon,” and the hilarious “Dance Myself to Sleep.”

If only it featured “Put Down the Duckie” it would be my favorite Sesame record ever.  Sadly, that duet between Ernie and Hoots the Owl never made it to vinyl.

Here’s the video for “Dance Myself to Sleep.”  If you’re really savvy you might just catch the Andrews Sisters reference Ernie makes to a hit from 1941.  Watch for it!

Big PFunk score at the Fall Record Show

I’m back from the fall record show, and the funk table was back again this season.  I found a number of albums from the PFunk family, including Parliament, Funkadelic, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns and Bernie Worrell.

Prices were steep, but I talked him down on my top four from his stash.

Below is a shot of my Pfunk collection (minus the Horny Horns albums) before the show…

And here are the four new LPs I picked up.  The Bootsy album was sealed with a comic inside, pictured below…

Also new in the mail from Germany is an absolute classic album from when I was a kid – They Might Be Giants’ all-time best-seller, Flood on vinyl.  This was the album that featured “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Particle Man.”