Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Broadcasting From Home (LP)
FormatLPLabelEditions EGGenreExperimental
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condition (record/cover): NM / EX+
The third Penguin Cafe Orchestra studio album, released 1984 on Editions EG (EGED 38) and recorded across 1982-1984. Broadcasting From Home is the record that took the Penguin Cafe sound onto British television: "Music For A Found Harmonium" became the band's most widely heard piece after Simon Jeffes found a discarded harmonium in an alleyway in Tokyo during a 1982 Japanese tour and built the composition around its character. The piece would later soundtrack a long list of films, advertisements and documentaries.
The album also contains "Prelude And Yodel", "More Milk", "Sheep Dip", "White Mischief", "In The Back Of A Taxi" and the long closing piece "Heartwind". The ensemble is essentially the Penguin Cafe Orchestra lineup expanded again: Jeffes leads on guitar, ukulele, piano and harmonium; Helen Liebmann plays cello; Steve Nye produces and plays keyboards; Gavyn Wright and Geoff Richardson handle the strings; Peter Veitch plays accordion; an expanded percussion section and various session players widen the palette. The compositional approach is more rhythmically driven than on the 1981 album, more world-music-inflected, with a stronger sense of song.
The original vintage Editions EG UK pressing on EGED 38, with Emily Young's cover painting. Broadcasting From Home is the album that brought the Penguin Cafe to mainstream British awareness without compromising the music's eccentricity. One of the more widely loved British chamber-pop records of the 1980s and a key document of the EG catalog.
Release notes
Recorded 1982 to 1984 at the Penguin Cafe. Mixed at Rooster, the Boathouse and Hippodrome Place. Produced for the P.C.O. by [...] Printed inner sleeve presenting EG Spring catalogue 1987. On Variant 2 inner sleeve: DRG MALAGO British Patent No. 1125555 321 B 10/89 MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN Lacquer Cut and Pressing credits derived from runout matrix. On variant 1, the runout info is stamped, apart from "TOWNHOUSE" which is finely hand-etched.
| A1 | Music For A Found Harmonium | 3:34 | |
| A2 | Prelude & Yodel | 3:51 | |
| A3 | More Milk | 3:05 | |
| A4 | Sheep Dip | 3:09 | |
| A5 | White Mischief | 5:48 | |
| A6 | In The Back Of A Taxi | 3:21 | |
| B1 | Music By Numbers | 4:40 | |
| B2 | Another One From The Colonies | 3:04 | |
| B3 | Air | 4:20 | |
| B4 | Heartwind | 4:10 | |
| B5 | Isle Of View (Music For Helicopter Pilots) | 4:29 | |
| B6 | Now Nothing | 2:58 |
- Simon Jeffes
- Acoustic Guitar, Guitar, Cuatro, Dulcitone, Performer [Soloban, Milkbottles], Bass, Omnichord, Harmonium, Drums, Triangle, Drum Machine [Linn], Spinet, Producer, Composed By
- Ching Ching Lee
- Calligraphy
- Helen Liebmann
- Cello
- Geoffrey Richardson
- Composed By (A3, A4, B1), Viola
- Neil Rennie
- Composed By (B2)
- Ryuichi Sakamoto
- Composed By (B4)
- Trevor Morais
- Cowbell, Hihat [Hi Hat], Wood Block
- Town & Country Planning
- Design
- Ian Morais
- Engineer
- Emily Young
- Painting [Cover Paintings]
- Ann Whitehead
- Trombone
- David Defries
- Trumpet, Flugelhorn
- Gavyn Wright
- Violin
