Who the fuck are GoGo Penguin?

There always has to be at least one outsider when it comes to award nominations and for this year’s Mercury Prize, well, it’s kinda obvious who’s taking on that role. Not so much an elephant in the room as a trio of penguins, GoGo Penguin are less 2014’s token jazz act and more an amalgamation of their classical and electronic influences. Don’t worry; their nod came as a surprise to them too…

“Probably the same way as everyone else reacted,” laughs the band’s pianist Chris Illingworth, on just how they reacted when they heard their name called. “It was a complete surprise. I had forgotten that it was around that time that it was all happening, and I was trying to have a day off, ignoring emails and that stuff, so I ended up getting a call from Nick [Blacka, bass] after he’d had an email from our manager, he was asking if I had checked my inbox. It was a real surprise; it was unbelievable, but we’re really excited.”

If there’s anything that the band are proud to have on their side, it’s their eclectic range of tastes: whilst it’d be easy to pin them down as a just another jazz act, listen a little harder and you’ll hear much more underneath the surface. “It’s an interesting one, for us,” Chris ponders, “we don’t think of it as being jazz or really any particular style of music. The great thing about the three of us is that when we got together, we’ve all listened to a lot of different music and we’ve all played a lot of different music. I’m more from a classical background, Rob’s done quite a lot of jazz and is very much into electronica while Nick’s come from a very jazz background but is very much into his hip hop. I think it’s when all those elements come together, it ends up allowing us to be freer.”

What’s the most rewarding, though, is the fact that regardless of genre, the band are going to be rubbing shoulders with such a broad array of artists tonight. “In a sense, it’s fine whatever people call us – we don’t mind – but it’s nice to know that the music has been listened to by enough people that it’s been recognised by the Mercury and that they’ve seen it on a par with other albums. FKA Twigs, for example, is an album that we’ve been listening to a lot recently so to be put on a par with those guys is incredible.”

GoGo Penguin are nominated for the Mercury Prize 2014 with their album ‘v2.0’. The final winner will be announced at London Roundhouse on 29th October.