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After a personally difficult period for the band, they found their way back by only what they knew – seeking solace in a studio.

INTRO

GoGo Penguin, a form of jazz for open minds, are back to winning ways with their new formation, Everything is Going to Be Okay. Weighted from a time of mourning and loss, the new sonic era GoGo have hustled in here is a subtly updated sound, all the while emerging from hardships, stronger from the last.

Known for their lounge licks on 2014’s v2.0 (featuring the outstanding Murmuration) and their interstellar outfit Raven on fan-favourite A Humdrum Star in 2017, GoGo Penguin enfuse together a state of prog-jazz blips and blobs that are not to be trifled with.

New beginnings, a new drummer and a new label, sees Everything Is Going to Be Okay.

Despite the trio being solely instrumental, they’ve still got plenty to say. GoGo’s lush jazz-lounge is now in session…

SONG BY SONG

Their three-year renewal since their last sees them take to the skies with interlude opener, You’re Stronger Than You Think. Words of personal encouragement are brought up from the bands’ hard-fought battle to ultimately press on through.

Both Glimmerings and Saturnine shows signs of GoGo’s go-to sounds, as Chris’s floating piano trills sizzle over a weaving double bass treading under the feathering ofJohn’s percussion, each limb independent to the other – a staple necessary in the contorts of jazz drumming. Friday Night Special comes up trumps too, the weaving piano motif present in one of their slower album works.

Sixth on the bill, Soon Comes The Night taps into GoGo’s vast resources in the cinematic, as a whole host of experimental sounds emerge from an ever-growing size of a song; including the piano jabs resembling that of a ball dropping down a flight of stairs.

An Unbroken Thread of Awareness feeds into the drone horrorscope as We May Not To Stay has plans of literal take-off, a figure jettisoning in the air simply grateful to celebrate the highs in what life has to offer. The self-assured self-titled is another achingly beautiful jibe spreading the thesis of true empathy, while the guys have another go at encouraging themselves to push on into the album’s final leg, with a revisit to You’re Stronger Than You Think, before they embark into one last push: Parasite.

A vibrancy like no other, Parasite is GoGo at their best and will certainly resonate with all of their hard-wired fans and even those astute critics of theirs. A 5-minute mega marathon that features long phrases that are more laid-out for esteemed solos than anything else and of course, a real big blow out to make those aware in the scene that the trio are really back for good.

A compendium to rival any of GoGo Penguin’s prior works, Everything Is Going to Be OK is a sure-fire testament that music is – and will always be – the answer.

HEAR THEM Live

Since the release, you can hear them on the road with their first stop in Manchester at the newly-established New Century Hall on the 23rd of May, before hitting the summer season with a festival in Oxfordshire at Wilderness Festival this year. Across the pond? Fret not, for the UK lads will also be navigating their way to LA’s Teregram Ballroom on the 27th of this month, before finishing up in Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the 13th of May during their leg of the Americas.