And this was a birthday present in 2005.
Though I've said that I felt the Penguin Cafe Orchestra had several more great albums still left in them when Simon Jeffes died, this posthumous release hints that maybe he was starting to move away from seeing the Orchestra as his preferred vehicle before he passed away. That said, these pieces were recorded between 1974 and 1996, so who really knows what was intended for them?
I'm sad to say I haven't fallen in love with this album yet. The pieces that bear close relationships to PCO tunes — Shelter, Silver Star of Bologna and Kora Kora — have an immediate appeal, but many of the others feel very slight.
Meanwhile a recent Radio 4 documentary about the PCO spoke confidently of a PCO reunion show at the end of this year to mark the ten year anniversary of Jeffes' death. I'll definitely be there if I possibly can be.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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