Traffic Jams: GoGoPenguin - 'All Res'

Now that Spotify Wrapped is taking over everyone's feed, it seems like a good time to share the music we jam to in our cars. Music can absolutely make or break the best drives, and some tracks are also a good shot of energy for dreary Monday mornings like this one.

That's why I'm sharing a little bit of upbeat, energetic music from GoGoPenguin, an outfit of three Jazz musicians out of Manchester, England. I've heard them referred to as a Jazz piano trio, but that label doesn't do them justice. It makes it sound like they're a stuffy, boring group, of which they're not:

That tweet features a jam session that would eventually go on to become a track on their 2018 album, A Humdrum Star, but the song featured in today's segment, "All Res," is the intro song to their 2016 album, Man Made Object.

And what an intro!

I won't spoil the rest of the tracks, and just let you get into them if you like this song. But a little preview: the whole album rocks just as hard. Of course, there are spots that are calm and soothing, which are well-suited for chilling in bumper-to-bumper traffic. But when the light turns green and you get rolling, the upbeat songs are perfect for pulling away from the group. I recommend letting the album play through in order to get the full effect.

I'm always up for some quiet, contemplative piano, but you really need a boost of beats-per-minute every once in a while. There's driving music and there's driving music, as in music that feels like it's propelling you forward. The beat, the tempo, the confluence of the instruments. It's all here, in "All Res." I love the gradual buildup in this song, which starts with a mellow piano and around the minute mark, just takes off!