The stupidest question in music journalism is “How did your band get its name?” Still, when the act you’re talking to is called GoGo Penguin, it’s one that must be asked.

Conveniently or not, Chris Illingworth’s phone decides to fritz out at that very point, but through the transatlantic static he can be heard saying something about “a stuffed magpie that looked more like a penguin”, which was briefly the band’s mascot.

Whew! Mystery solved.

No matter how the Manchester trio came by its moniker, it seems apt for GoGo Penguin’s blend of formal complexity and playful physicality. At times, the band augments its essentially acoustic sound with real-time electronic processing; elsewhere, Illingworth’s classical training manifests itself in passages with a romantic and Russian bent.

“I absolutely love Rachmaninoff,” the pianist explains. “The main thing with him was his idea of voicing. He was so clever at having all these inner melodies. Chopin was a big one as well, and Debussy. And then I got into a lot of contemporary music. I ended up playing with a small group called New Ensemble at the RNCM [Royal Northern College of Music], where I studied, and that was really interesting because it got me into the more experimental music that I wouldn’t have otherwise found. It put me in the direction of John Cage and Philip Glass and Steve Reich, all those guys. John Adams was another: some of the techniques he uses I’m trying to relate back to the piano as well.”

This might explain some of the repetitive patterns that surface in GoGo Penguin’s second full-length, the Mercury Prize–nominated v2.0, but Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka, and drummer Ron Turner are also interested in expanding the EDM styles they were exposed to in Manchester’s vital club scene.

“The idea of following one style just seems too restrictive,” Illingworth says. “It’s not like I want to write a techno track; I just want to take that element and see what it sounds like if we add a Squarepusher-style melody or a really classical-style harmonic structure. It starts getting interesting when you combine those things. And with the jazz thing, the main thing we wanted to keep was the idea of improvisation. We want our freedom, so that our tunes can evolve over time or can be tweaked depending on what kind of audience we’re playing to.”

So far, audiences have been impressed—including one showcase crowd that included Blue Note label execs Don Was and Nico Pflug. The two signed GoGo Penguin up, and the band will preview material from its upcoming Blue Note release at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival.

“It’s a massive honour to be asked to be a part of something as big as that,” Illingworth says. “Obviously, they see that we have this jazz element, but we’re also adding something fresh to it, and they seem to be very keen on that. So, yeah, I think it’s going to do good things for us, being with those guys.”

GoGo Penguin plays Ironworks on June 23, as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival’s Made in the U.K. series.