Last year, French multi-instrumentalist Tom Penaguin delighted us with his self-titled debut, and you can read my thoughts on this by clicking on the button below.

2025 brings a further release, Beginnings, which is not new music, as such, but Tom revisiting old compositions and recordings he experimented with between 2012 and 2020. As the man himself puts it in his notes to the album, the sound quality makes it sound way older than it is, so we should take it as an involuntary bootleg-ish archival album of moods and experiments he went through while growing up, hence the name: Beginnings.

You can get the album from the superb áMARXE label’s Bandcamp page at https://amarxe.bandcamp.com/album/beginnings and a very quick acknowledgement, incidentally, of the fine album artwork from Maureen Piercey.

There are seven pieces of music, starting with Long Piece Number 1, recorded in 2013, and his first foray into the long form song, and it is always a pleasing aspect of an album’s ambition to kick off with something lasting more than twelve minutes. Immediately, the quirky experimental spirit of Canterbury days gone by hits you, and the interactions between keys, bass, and percussion in a jazz-infused delight make you want to get up and dance, before the mood changes to that of a more thoughtful disposition, more experimental and swirling sounds, via some quite heavy segments, adventurous rock guitar solo, and funky bass grooves, via hitting his father’s karting trophies (as you do). I don’t know how old Penaguin is precisely, but if, as I suspect, these were written and recorded by a chap barely out of his teens, then we are witnessing a genius, really, somebody with the ability to craft a whole out of radically different sub-sections, whose playing is fascinating and creating a unique fare.

Ominous Bathtub in April is a title to die for, before you have even begun to listen to the music. Also recorded in 2013, the unique sound owing to him recording the music as he was writing it, so tones shifting significantly from one part to the next. What strikes me on this is how well he was using the bass as a lead melody instrument even from the very start. The guitar solos are roaring on this, the drums relatively primitive and mono, the moods changing swiftly from relentless pace to pastoral beauty to more recognisable progressive rock (six and a half minutes in, you swear you are listening to Ant Phillips, the guitar work and soundscapes that good), with military beats thrown in as well. It is embedded below for you.

I played Two and a Half on my radio show a couple of weeks ago. It is a short track recorded in 2012, with some dextrous use of the snare drum against a thoughtful melody from the keys and guitar, the latter reminding me as much of Latimer as any of the Canterbury crew.

The Tap Dancing Millipede Grew Tired is another title that delights. It was recorded in 2013, a guitar-heavy piece Tom describes as the beginning of his fascination for Leslie cabs on guitar, but owing to him not owning one, it's “only a fast and subtle chorus pedal”. It is a curious piece, some very good guitar work, but also the keys urgent in parts, some of the riffs furious but pastoral at times, with a hint of Americana in there, alongside some great drums and percussion, the bass melody gorgeous underneath. It is embedded aside for you, quite a lot happening in a short space of time.

Several Clocks is from 2015, and your chance to hear his parents’ timekeeping pieces. That really doesn’t sound as interesting as it is, because I simply love the way he has put this song together, showing an adventurous spirit way in excess of his years, the way he uses the guitar and bass to build momentum wonderful, some of the playing quite gorgeous, quirky keys, all interacting with the clocks perfectly, not missing one beat or chime, and showing he can rock out with the best of them. A highlight of 2025 to me.

The penultimate track is Hamburg’s Heaviest Pebble, which, given the shenanigans associated with that fine boudoir over the decades, must be a fair old size! It’s the most recent song, recorded in 2020, but on analogue gear, piles of improvisation herein. It is a monster of a track, almost sixteen minutes long, bursting forth with some pulsatingly heavy riffs, superb guitar soloing, the rhythm section a mighty foundation before the organ takes down the mood a notch, but with the guitar still playing its soul out, the rhythm beneath full of feeling, heralding the second passage reminiscent of Floyd circa Meddle but then moving into something far more akin to modern post rock, a sense of anticipatory doom inherent in the bassline especially, the guitar screaming in the background, the keys spacey, dominating as it moves on, swirling, nightmarish, pure psych dark rock, and a joy to listen to, a fascinating smorgasbord of styles, the final third beginning with a planetary style guitar solo, incredible speed and feeling on those frets, akin to Gilmour impersonating Iommi on speed, the dark metal taking over with some industrial sounds, the dark side of the city personified in music, perhaps. This track is an astonishing creation, very much a contender for this website’s “epic of the year” award.

We close with Penaguin revisiting his Long Piece Number 1 in 2018, the artist proclaiming that the old one “sounds true and nostalgic” as his preferred piece, but that “they are different enough to have their spot on this album”, and I agree. The second version is four minutes longer, and has, I think, a much more modern feel to it, guitar riffs absolutely charging all else along, but with those differing moods I spoke about above still the predominant impression you take away, so Floyd, Canterbury, post rock, symphonic sentiments in the rerecorded organs particularly, and a good old racket, especially the closing segment, which is a fine old Gates of Delerium noise.

I think in years to come, Tom Penaguin will be regarded as a colossus of intelligent music and mentioned for his guitar playing in the same breath as Allan Holdsworth. This exceptional and intriguing set of songs shows us how it all started. The ongoing journey will be one hell of a ride.