Sometimes the most profound revelations arrive wearing the simplest clothes.
GoGo Penguin‘s ‘What We Are and What We Are Meant to Be’ emerges as a meditation on authenticity wrapped in deceptively unadorned electronics, where the Manchester trio’s decision to abandon showboating creates space for something more quietly radical. Here, Nick Blacka’s Moog Grandmother synth underpins the track like a steady heartbeat, whilst Chris Illingworth’s piano lines drift above with the kind of melodic clarity that feels both inevitable and surprising.
What makes this track compelling isn’t its technical wizardry but its restraint—the way GoGo Penguin allow each element to breathe without demanding attention. The absence of improvisation, usually central to their sound, paradoxically liberates them to explore emotional territories that virtuosity might otherwise obscure. It’s music that moves without announcing its intentions, suggesting that sometimes the most honest artistic statement is simply to stop trying so hard to impress.
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