About time we feature one of the more famous penguin-themed bands here on Weekly Penguin arena; Penguin Cafe Orchestra. You got that right, penguin... café... orchestra. I like orchestral music and my life's motto is coffee and penguins, so it's actually a miracle I haven't featured them before. Let's fix this!

So what is Penguin Cafe Orchestra? That is actually a pretty darn good question, since it's not exactly music one can slot into any genre. I call this 'atmospheric music'; something that creates a unique atmosphere with minimal soundscape. If you want a professional opinion, I looked it up and Wikipedia lists PCO as 'chamber jazz', while Allmusic has labels like 'new-age' and 'pop jazz'. But seriously, when a band is literary inspired by a fewer dream you can pretty much give up on trying to categorize it. It's not for everyone – heck, it likely isn't for most – but PCO is a unique anomaly of a band.

Founded by British musician Simon Jeffes in the 1970s, under Brian Eno's Obscure Records, the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra existed until 1997 when, sadly, Jeffes passed away. However, his son Arthur Jeffes picked up and now runs a group simply called Penguin Cafe, a spiritual successor to the original PCO.

We start off with their debut album Music from the Penguin Cafe from 1976. I obviously have the remastered CD re-release from 2000s, so this delightfully bizarre cover artwork is the newer one from Emily Young, a vocalist and the 'resident' cover artist for the band. While PCO's début album is perhaps their most uneven one, it's still as good place as any to start featuring our fellow penguin-obsessed ones.