To Thine Own Self Be True: GoGo Penguin Reflects on Their Unique Sound

Perception can mean everything when it comes to digesting a new band, artist, album, or song. While musicians of all genres and styles must face the open-ended potential of others’ perceptions of their music, Manchester, England’s GoGo Penguin definitely deals with more than their fair share of this reality – all very much of their own volition, and to very successful ends thus far in the band’s eight year journey.

Filed in many folks’ memory banks under a mix of jazz, neo-classical, and minimalist acoustic-electronica, GoGo Penguin (Chris Illingworth, piano; Rob Turner, drums; and Nick Blacka, bass) has consistently left its music at the mercy of listeners’ associative memories around other artists within those genres. Nevertheless, the trio also manages to stand out as a strongly differentiating entity that could never be pinned as just the stapled-together summation of sonic peer parts. After three albums and partnering with legendary Blue Note Records, the band has reached a creative turning point with fourth LP, GoGo Penguin, which arrives today, June 12, 2020.

Together with consecutive successful releases comes some well-earned comfort around creative direction. Yet, rather than stay the course, GoGo Penguin decided to embrace even more uncharted compositional territory and how a lot of the latest album’s new character comes through is thanks to the way Illingworth, Blacka, and Turner each has shifted (or experienced a shift in) how they perceive everything from the music that inspires them, to sounds in the world around them, the role of non-performance tools in their songwriting, and even their trusted instruments.

“I’ve been listening to a lot of classical again,” says Illingworth “But I haven’t really played any again in ages. Haven’t really had the chance to. [Particularly] when we’re on tour, I don’t really get a lot of time to play a lot of classical. [But] It’s been really nice at the moment, having a lot of time to kind of learn some new things so, I’ve been listening to some Ravel – a collection of pieces called “Miroirs” – which are really beautiful,” he says.

Blacka has running on a similarly classical-powered wavelength during quarantine but has traversed timelines all the way from the “Father of music” to an active bassist more akin to a peer of Blacka’s than a predecessor.

“I’ve been getting quite nerdy about bass players, if I’m honest. I’ve sort of been going back to practicing a bit and checking out things I normally don’t listen to that much. Things I’m not all that familiar with,” says Blacka.

“A journalist turned me on to a bass player from Norway called Sigurd Hole,” he continues, “and [Hole] did this album where he just went by the ocean and recorded this––I don’t want to say it’s abstract but, it’s not mainstream music, that’s for sure. It’s solo bass and it’s kind of [made] with sounds of the oceans and stuff like that. I’ve [also] been listening to some classical double bass stuff like the Bach Cello Suites.”

As a group, GoGo Penguin have also been sharing their listening impulses by way of a regularly updated playlist called “Home Listening: A Playlist by GoGo Penguin.” Its contents, which include the likes of instrumental, vocal, ambient, modern alternative and more, certainly reflect an ongoing and increasing clamor for stylistic exploration within GoGo Penguin’s own work, as well as an appreciation for inspiring flexible interpretation, rather than fixed explanation, among its listeners.

Nowhere is this more evident that GoGo Penguin’s opening track, “1#,” the very title of which inspires curiosity over whether it’s meant as “1-sharp,” “1-pound,” or perhaps even “1-hashtag.” Perhaps to the surprise of some, the title is actually just “Number 1.” 

“We’ve always kept it quite subtle or quite cryptic with the [song] names if we can. We’re not really, we’re never trying to necessarily dictate what to people what [a] track is about or say, ‘You must think it’s about this’ or, ‘You must feel this,’ says Blacka.

He continues, “We like for people to kind of interpret things their own way, Then when they come and see us play they’ll often say, ‘Oh, you know, it makes me think of this,’ or ‘It sounds like this band,’ and it’s nice that everyone kind of feels their own way about [the music.] I think we wanted to do the same with the titles as well.”

“I can’t quite remember why we came up with that to be honest, as the title for that [song],” Illingworth recalls. We originally thought of it like an introduction – it felt like an introduction – to something whilst we were working on it. And then as we came to put the album together it just felt like it opened the album really well. So yeah, we were just trying to indicate that,” he says.

The two minute introductory piece follows through with one of GoGo Penguin’s most ambient tracks to date. Added to the gentle single notes and sometimes dissonant chords from Illingworth’s piano, are sounds like crumpling metal, buzzing electrical, and children playing in the distance, all of which that seem more immediately suited for sound design than recreational music.

“We just decided on the day of recording when we came around to [1#] that we wanted to make it atmospheric and sort of use something else, just something that brought another texture,” says Blacka. “Joe Reiser and Brendan Williams, who co-produced the album and have since v2.0 when I came into the band,” he continues, “they said, ‘Well, we can record some things around and outside of the studio.’ I think maybe there’s the sound of my car reversing on gravel. There’s like, pool balls in the table, and then the bellows that pump the organ (we used).”

However, the straightforward label doesn’t takeaway from GoGo Penguin’s push for more wide interpretation going into GoGo Penguin, as it reveals that despite the band’s core instrumentation remaining the same, Blacka, Illingworth, and Turner have shifted to yet another way of framing how each sound, note, and phrase ends up making the cut for a track, and ultimately the record.

“I think it’s been nice,” says Illingworth. “With [third album, A Humdrum Star,] we did something where it was much more about [asking] ‘What effects can we get from the instruments?’ and with [GoGo Penguin,] it was much more, ‘What effects can we get with everything around us in that environment where we were recording?’ It was really fun just for that moment and it was really strange as well,” he says.

This of course, doesn’t mean that GoGo Penguin have decided to go sound design mad, as Blacka clarifies.

“We only use (effects) if we feel it’s necessary. We don’t try to use effect just for the sake of it.”

The embrace of a different creative vantage point wasn’t just limited to to looking outward for inspiration or sonic uniqueness though. The trio did plenty of reflecting inward both as individual players and in how their performances can relate to one another as a piece unfolds. Turner, who has, over time, been initiating writing at the computer more and his own kit less, doesn’t view the shift in his primary tools as a detriment.

“I rarely write from the drums; we (used to) tour so much and there was rarely time to practice so, over time I’ve just got used to using the laptop. I’d write beats or parameters for improvising and then learn them later,” Turner says.

Turner goes on to elaborate as to exactly what technology he’s kept closest for crafting beats.

“I like using glitch and random midi plugins, some max things too. I’ll write something kind of normal and then see what other things the software can inspire. Or sometimes create a synthesized sound, construct a track around it and then the tune gets developed with the band. One of my really good friends who works at Ableton showed me [a device called kordbot by Isla instruments] and it was exactly what I felt was missing [prior to] this album. It creates really interesting [arpeggiating] patterns that you can edit, program, and improvise with from the controller.”

Beyond just listing particular pieces of technology and software, Turner describes a great deal of nuance when it comes to how he perceives assorted sounds from drums and electronic beats, describing how both can work together to create the kind of parts that made the music on GoGo Penguin so striking this time around.

“You can hear melodies in beats,” says Turner. “A lot of time is spent editing and tuning drums to a track but, you can also pick colors out of percussive sounds and it has the shape of melodies and harmonies. The two things are linked. I understand that there’s a difference between membranes and strings but it all feeds in and out of itself,” he says.

“I was much less interested in harmony in this album,” he continues,  “At the time, I was thinking of music in orders of ethos, old ideas about scales and forms that are rooted in geometry. There’s more distance between yourself and music this way which makes articulating ideas easier. I think the drums as an instrument are still evolving. More integration between synthesis and acoustic is sure to come.”

For Blacka and Illingworth, each came to realize new ways of perceiving their respective instruments as well, with some of the realizations either changing the way they would interact with the instrument or how one person’s attempt at change might end up better suited for the other.

“[B]efore I played with GoGo Penguin,” says Illingworth, “I’d been interested in people like John Cage and some of [his] prepared piano works. Things that were quite interesting in the way that he used the piano. But even then, the very kind of traditional, you know, it’ll often be – I say traditional but they’ll use the same sort of techniques – so, putting nuts and bolts and things in the piano. Maybe he’ll put some paper on top of the strings. Or maybe he’ll kind of hit the sound board. You know, there are techniques that are kind of often used,” he says.

“So a lot of the music gets written on a computer or get written electronically,” he explains. “And then we’ll try and emulate those sounds and that’s where they come from. A big part of it has kind of been [about asking myself, ‘how can I make the piano sound a bit more like a synth or make it sound electronic, without using a synth or without using electronics?’,” Illingworth says.

“I think we’ve put more thought into the last two albums into how the piano and the bass parts specifically work together and trying to sometimes think of one unified thing,” Blacka says. “Especially in – there’s a tune on the album called ‘Open’ where, at the beginning we put lots of thought into how exactly to articulate the opening phrases of the bass and the piano together and how it’s going to interweave around this really sort of busy drum beat. It [took] ages.” he says.

Try to play the upright bass but imagine it’s portmanteau on a synth. So I’m trying to think like it’s a synth but it’s an acoustic instrument, which is something we do with all our instruments,” says Blacka.

Amid all the meticulous experimentation with performance, execution, and timing, all three gentlemen behind GoGo Penguin have kept another facet of changed perception in mind – a changed perception that’s actually still evolving – for this fourth outing: that GoGo Penguin is a unified entity. The trio see it as conglomeration of intertwined ideas that doesn’t run on separated distinction. This mindset is so important to the group that it was large part of why the new record was designated an eponymous release.

“[O]ne of the reasons we wanted to call the album GoGo Penguin this time around [was] because it felt like we’re always getting a step closer to that [idea], which is the thing being bigger than the sum of its parts and how we all contribute,” Blacka explains.

What we found is that we’ve got these ideas of styles and genres and sounds in our music and things we want to incorporate in the music and it’s just the case that whenever we write, [we say,] ‘Let’s write whatever we feel like; don’t worry too much about how it’s going to be done or how we’re going to play it. Then we start finding a way to do that afterwards,” says Illingworth.

He continues, emphasizing the subtle but noteworthy difference between playing music that’s meant to be heard at the same time, and playing music that’s meant to move and progress together. “We’re trying to make something that feels like a band. Where all three of us play and we’re playing one thing, rather than it being three separate things we just kind of play at the same time. You know, you get some bands that feel like they’re a proper unit and then some other bands that just sounds like it’s people playing the same room together. We really wanted to make it feel like everybody’s piece comes together and they all combine and make these bigger things. I think that’s an element of why we try and do these effects as well.”

Through all this talk of GoGo Penguin’s broadened sonic horizons, an inversion of how its players search for inspiration, and the trio’s further solidification as a group, it would be understandable for one to believe the band is standing at a clearly definitive moment in its story. That from here on, this acoustic, electronic, singular, multi-faceted band has brought forth the most clear, decisive version of itself and its musical statements with GoGo Penguin.

Still, even though some fundamental pre-requisites that come with ‘becoming a band’ are long past for a group several years and albums in there’s an understanding between Illingworth, Turner, and Blacka, that the main element they’ve substantially gained – confidence in themselves – is what drives everything they’re doing and will do in the future. And while that doesn’t mean the band’s sense of creativity has reached a point of unflinching perfection, the trio seems to be at a place of welcome acceptance for whatever happens within the whole process – from the very first utterance of a new idea, all the way through to the release of a newly finished album.

“(There are) arguments over (music), discussions, going home and not being able to think about anything except the tunes and, you know, not sleeping right cause it’s still spinning around your head [and] you’re trying to work out the right version of it. It’s really time consuming – in a good way. We enjoy it. The process is really good,” says Illingworth.

“When we first started out, we were maybe trying techniques that not many people were trying and we didn’t really know if anyone else was really going to like it or be into it but we did it because that’s what we wanted to do,” says Blacka. “And obviously it turns out that quite a lot of people like it, which is great,” he continues, “but it’s also getting a sense of being more confident in [our] choices and really exploring those things. As long as we feel like that’s always a progression for us, we’re happy. So I can’t say right now this is the definitive moment of the band and then whatever comes after it won’t match up – hopefully we’ll improve on it – but I think this is the really the most comfortable we’ve been.”