Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Penguin Cafe Orchestra (1981)

Simon Jeffes was a British folk scenester who seems to have known everyone despite never getting particularly famous. He started and led the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, creating something that isn’t really folk, or chamber music, or new age, or jazz, but has hallmarks of all that.

It’s very laid-back, but played in beautiful detail. Telephone And Rubber Band and a few other tracks remind you of Edgar Meyer’s (o_O O_o) noodly classical-americana hybrid, while other tracks bring to mind a more European approach like Eno or Kraftwerk.

While Jeffes died in 1997, there is a current band called Penguin Cafe, which makes similar music updated to this century by Jeffes’ son, Arthur.