Are GoGo Penguin jazz? Their first album, Fanfares, came out just over a decade ago, in November 2012; it was released on Gondwana, a label run by trumpeter Matthew Halsall, whose own music is quite beautiful spiritual jazz. They stayed with Gondwana for their 2014 breakthrough release, v2.0, but then signed with Blue Note for 2016’s Man Made Object, 2018’s A Humdrum Star, and 2020’s self-titled release, which was followed the next year by the remix album GGP/RMX. It is painstakingly difficult to be an instrumental act and to succeed within the popular music sphere. Many listeners tend to shun purely instrumental music, perhaps finding it less relatable or stimulating in comparison to a good old fashioned pop song. The instrumental acts that do triumph tend to have something undeniable about them – a way of speaking without words. There’s not many better sonic conversationalists than GoGo Penguin.

Their artistry has seen a devoted global following continue to gather around them. In September 2014, their second album v2.0 was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize Album of the Year. Then, the band signed to the legendary Blue Note Records for their critically-acclaimed Man Made Object record in 2016. Now with a new drummer Jon Scott and an enhanced electronic sensibility, the band are working closely with Joe and producer Brendan Williams to refine how they operate in the studio. Ahead of the release of Everything Is Going to Be OK, we caught up with the trio to discuss the upcoming album and its emotional importance, creating depth in their compositions, and how their sound has developed over the years. GoGo Penguin on their sixth full-length: where they've previously had a pattern of evocative titles and vaguely futuristic abstract covers, this one (at first glance) looks and reads almost like a greeting card. This also comes after one-third of the trio changed with 2022's interim EP, Between Two Waves (Sony/XXIM). Underneath the wrapping, though, it's recognizably the same evolving not-jazz-not-techno mix that they've made into their own niche, even when taking time to touch grass (or just watch the birds) for a while. Glimmerings was one of the first tunes that we began to work on when preparing ideas for a new album. 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 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 for where it’s going to take you and you have to trust in the process and yourself to see where that process will lead you”.It felt right, the music was great and we just went with it,” Chris says of the album. “I don’t think we’d have had these ideas a few years ago. And if we had, we probably wouldn’t have embraced them in the same way.” NEW ALBUM BURSTS WITH NEW BEGINNINGS AFTER PERIOD OF TURMOIL, DEEP PERSONAL LOSS AND MOURNING, BAND’S TEMPORARY SHAKEUP AND RE-FORMATION Everything Is Going to Be OK was born during a time of turbulence and loss. Recorded in a personally difficult period for the band, which included deep personal loss and mourning, the album studio time offered the band a sanctuary from real life. The resulting project draws its strength from a shared understanding and empathy, with a truly vibrant and hopeful sonic.. Life has many great aspects to it and despite the lows, we should be mindful and grateful to celebrate the highs at every turn. Through our hardships, together, we will emerge stronger; everything is going to be ok. GoGo Penguin shirks tradition, fusing the elements of jazz with classical influences and the charging, repetitive beats of electronica”

Berlin, January 20, 2023 – Today, UK-based cinematic break-beat trio GoGo Penguin announce their forthcoming new album Everything Is Going to Be OK (April 14, SONY MUSIC/XXIM Records), a sonically liberated new direction for the band, born of a period of deep personal loss, mourning, and triumph.The album feels like a new chapter in your artistic and personal development. Has making it been a cathartic experience? The crisp friction of this genre-pushing trio largely sets the sound-profile for the record as a whole, inviting the listener to contemplate the meaning of the ensemble’s experimental timbres within the familiarity of the syncopated hypergrooves for which they have come to be known. Through a melange of analogue and digital techniques, each player develops the sonic possibilities of their primarily acoustic instruments in the same manner EDM producers may approach new modular rhythms and synth patches. In GoGo Penguin’s case, however, this allows the group to pursue their electronic influences without always resorting to the use of electronic devices themselves. GoGo Penguin is a piano-trio from Manchester, UK. Formed in 2012, the trio’s sophomore album v2.0 was nominated in 2014 for the Mercury Music Prize and in 2016, the trio signed to Blue Note Records, releasing a trio of acclaimed albums: Man Made Object, A Humdrum Star and GoGo Penguin, as well as two EPS and a remix album GGP/RMX. They were Blue Note’s best-selling contemporary instrumental artists and sold over 300,000 albums. Indeed, while the music on Everything Is Going To Be OK contains jazzy elements — there’s improvisation, the upright bass is often prominent, and the rhythms sometimes swing — there are so many other things going on that it’s almost impossible to categorize them. A piece like “Friday Film Special” owes more to DJ Shadow than to Brad Mehldau, and “Soon Comes Night” lays a pulsing electronic filter over the keyboard and blasts Scott’s drums through a wash of static and noise.