" data-original-title="" title="">GoGo Penguin? After several recordings developing a niche they call "acoustic electronica"—an amorphous recipe of rock-and techno-oriented hooks played on jazz instruments in real time—one might have thought we had the answer to that question with the eponymous GoGo Penguin (Blue Note, 2020). Like many self-titled albums, it made a clear statement of identity with a defining sound. Then again, it was soon followed by a companion remix album (Blue Note, 2021) of fully electronic reinventions, which showed that the other side of the coin felt just as much them, even amidst a whirlwind of sounds never found in nature.

So that was one answer to the question of GGP's identity, but then they only keep evolving. The band had found plenty of variety with sound-sculpting tricks, such as spreading rattly objects across the drums, or muting piano strings with duct tape. Still, the analogue-with-gimmicks framework was never a strict rule, and more changes kept coming—a new drummer, more judicious uses of synthesizer gear to shade the piano notes,