Ergo Phizmiz - Live in Warsaw - Free Live Album

A live album, from Ergo Phizmiz's live show at The Song Is You Festival, Warsaw, September 2009.



The show featured Warsaw based musicians Macio Moretti & Piotr Zabrodski, and goes between solo numbers performed by Ergo, and songs performed as a three piece band.

Download it at the Free Music Archive.

Watch People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz Live at King's Place

From Peoplelikeus.org, here is the entirety of the PLU & Ergo Phizmiz live show, from King's Place "Art of Sampling" festival, November 2008.

Please give the above a moment to load into your browser, and if you cannot see the play button below the image, try hitting your spacebar.

Download the video here.

Turkey Party

Ergo Phizmiz presents dessications of all your favourite Yuletide hits.

An album cut from the Christmas specials of Phuj Phactory on WFMU (2006), and Sticky White Glue on Resonance FM (2003).

Download it free, at the WFMU Free Music Archive.

Jingle Hell on Soundart Radio

From Saturday December 13th on Soundart Radio:

"Soundart Radio's annual mash up of all things seasonal. Open to contributors: send us your Christmas noises, subversions, poems, etc. This year we feature work from Wrong Music, Oima, Ergo Phizmiz, John Rutter, Ren and Stimpy, Monkton Wylde, Lucinda Guy and more. More material shall be added."

The Ergo Phizmiz music in Jingle Hell includes seasonal collages originally produced for WFMU, Ergo's 2004 improvised turntable performance for Christian Marclay's 'The Sounds of Christmas' project, the Father Christmas speech from the 2002 Komediergophizmiz performed by Erik Bumbledonk, and the Sticky White Glue Christmas episode.

"Paul Klee, a Balloon, the Moon, Music and Me" on BBC iPlayer, and new Ergo Phizmiz website

For the next five days you can stream the new Ergo Phizmiz radio-art piece "Paul Klee, a Balloon, the Moon, Music and Me" on BBC iPlayer. Direct link to listen.

And why not head over to the swish and swanky new Ergo Phizmiz website, now at the new address of www.ergophizmiz.net

Paul Klee, A Balloon, The Moon, Music and Me - On BBC Radio 3 - December 5th 09

BROADCASTING 2130 GMT, on BBC Radio 3, Saturday December 5th 2009, and on BBC iPlayer for one week after broadcast.

On BBC Radio 3's Between The Ears, "Paul Klee, A Balloon, The Moon, Music and Me"...

A fantastical encounter with Swiss painter Paul Klee, in an imaginary Klee-world of twittering machines and dream landscapes, singing colour polyphony and scribbling violin. Composer and writer Ergo Phizmiz wanders through Klee's paintings in the company of their creator, evoking their vivid colours and whimsical humour in intricately composed soundscapes. Klee takes Ergo on a hot-air balloon ride which, like a magic carpet, miraculously flies them to Tunisia, the land where he 'became a painter'. Their voyage also passes through paintings of strange gardens, mountain carnivals, and abstract colour gradations, before they finally ascend to the moon, a dream-world populated by lunar monkeys, peculiar birds and trees bulging with seeping paint.

This programme’s music and sound-design was entirely composed by Ergo Phizmiz, who also wrote the script and plays himself. The role of Paul Klee is taken by Felix Kubin, also a prolific composer and radio-play maker, who lives in Germany, and Klee's violin is performed by composer John Matthias, winner of the 2008 PRS New Music Award and collaborator with artists including Radiohead, Coldcut and Matthew Herbert.

Go to Between The Ears

Ergo Phizmiz at The Song Is You 09 Festival, Warsaw

New live set in Warsaw, and improvisation with Justin Bond, of the delightful Kiki & Herb, November 21 2009. Here is more information.

Outtakes from "The Snow Flea"

This music consists of unused segments composed for "The Snow Flea", a puppet-opera by Patrick Sims with music by Ergo Phizmiz, performed by Buchinger's Boot Marionettes (www.buchingersboot.com).

"The Snow Flea" premiered on November 3rd, 2009, at Theatre Massalia, Marseilles

Composed, Performed & Produced by Ergo Phizmiz

Download it free by clicking here.

"The Snow Flea" - Premiere in Marseille

Opening on November 3rd at Theatre Massalia, Marseille, Buchinger's Boot Marionettes present "La Puce de Neige" ("The Snow Flea"), a fantastical puppet-opera by Patrick Sims, with original musical score by Ergo Phizmiz.

From Buchinger's Boot:

"At the present day magnetic North Pole, a forever wandering location, the tiny snow flea, Keruguq, is hiding out from Baron Tugar Von Torngark, a mean flea circus ringmaster who wants to turn Keruguq into an ice cream preservative. The Baron, accompanied by his sidekick, Wayne, a greasy French-fry eating seagull, operate a foul ice cream industry powered by the fleas from his circus.

Meanwhile, an old, hiccoughing Inuit shaman named Simmiktartoq, vows to protect Keruguq and teaches his over-imaginative children how to “eat the weather”. Keruguq gets lost from his home when he falls down a great opening in the earth and suddenly finds himself at the other end of the world - in the Antarctic and desperate to return. Along the way home he meets a host of eccentric animals, insects and micro-organisms who help him on his return, sharing meals, adventures and stories. He eventually returns back to the magnetic North Pole and things have turned upside down. Transforming robots and Inuit totem pole dance, costumed children fly, fleas, worms, lice and mosquitoes have a jazz band jam session under the northern lights! The snow flea is a story of science fiction fantasy mixed with Stone Age mythology and real geophysical anomalies! Part flea circus, part ancient Inuit ice cream ceremony, a tragic-comedy puppet opera for children of all ages!"

Ergo Phizmiz's rich and imagistic score is created from acoustic and electronic instrumentation, built around samples and references to Inuit folk music, Arctic field-recordings, circus music, and 19th century orchestral music.

Ergo Phizmiz Rock'N'Roll Machine : Dadaphone - Out Now on the Free Music Archive

Continuing in the long line of acclaimed albums of covers and reinventions of pop music by Ergo Phizmiz comes "Dadaphone", in the new incarnation of the Rock'N'Roll Machine.






In 2003 Ergo very cruelly upset the Aphex Twin fan community with his reinventions of the music of Richard D. James for acoustic and toy instruments, incidentally a record that the James in question was rather fond of.

2004 saw the release of Ergo's cover of the entirety of the Velvet Underground's "White Light / White Heat" album, into a semi-mechanical behemoth of toys, tinny synths and banjoes, to both whistles and boos across the world.

By 2005 and the album "Arff and Beef" he had turned his attention to R & B classics of the present day, wherein Beyonce, Timberlake, Missy, et al, were given the Phizmiz treatment.

After a hiatus from cover versions Ergo returned with his band The Midnight Florists in tow for the whacked-out opus "Now That's What We Pump at the Party", in which dancefloor fillers of the 90s and noughties were transformed into multilayered slabs of lo-fi rhythmic goodness gracious me.

And now ...... the Ergo Phizmiz Rock'N'Roll Machine brings you "Dadaphone", a huge and savage record of booms and bangs, in which Ergo deals with the widest range of covers yet, from the intense merging of three or four different cover versions in album opener "The Bomb", to the slow and very loud rock'n'roll waltz version of the Pet Shop Boys "It's a Sin", to the intensive ludicrous funkpunk workout of "Slap My Bass Up" (a simultaneous cover of two different songs by The Prodigy, with some of the Bucketheads and Europe's "Final Countdown" thrown in). The record is created in collaboration with Ergo's compadre The Travelling Mongoose, who grounds the record into a solid earthy lump of pop yum.

This is the most diverse and considered of all the Ergo Phizmiz covers projects so far, as much a party record as an aesthetic statement. We're quite sure that, as is par for the course with this kind of project now, some people will certainly find something to be wildly offended about and feel inclined to post aggressive messages on the internet about just what a terrible record it is and how talentless and mindless Ergo is.

However for those of you with smiles in your hearts, switch on, turn it up, put on your disco lights, and take a trip through the past 30 years or so of pop music with Ergo Phizmiz as your host.

Direct link to the record http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ergo_Phizmiz_RockNRoll_Machine/Dadaphone/

Something imminent....

Let's get ready to Let's get ready to Let's get ready to Rhumba
(Let's get ready to Rhumba)
(Let's get ready to Rhumba)
Watch us wreck the floor
Watch us wreck the floor
Watch us wreck the floor
Rhumba!

Straight up proven
We can get you groovin'
This dance is boomin'
It ain't no hype

Watch us wreck the floor
Watch us wreck the floor
Rhumba!

Let's get ready to Rhumba
Let's get ready to Rhumba
Get ready get steady and Rhumba
Everybody Rhumba!

Sit back cracker jack
Don't take no flack
Dance in time
To the rhythm of the track
I'm Ergo
I'm Mongoose

A duo
A twosome
So many moves
We're frightened to use them
So many moves
We'll keep them in stores
We've even got them
Comin' out of our pores
Your Father
Your Mother
Your Sister
Your Brother
Everyone's gotta be a Rhumba lover

Give us the motivation
We can cause a sensation
Give us the aspiration
We can cause a sensation
Give us girls top speed
Cause the girls stampede
Stylin' smilin' everybody butt-whilin'

Let's get ready to Rhumba
Let's get ready to Rhumba
Get ready get steady and Rhumba
Everybody Rhumba
Let's get ready to Rhumba

Partners in pants
With a thrill for romance
An evening for for us
Has to end in a dance
Raw and pure like sushi
Don't try to do me
Use me or even try to sue me

We lay down the law
We're quick on the draw
We played it
We made it
The rest don't score
No jokes No messin'
We teach you a lesson
A state of confusion
To keep you all guessin'

Freakin' it sweatin' it
Bustin' the floor
Slammin' it jammin' it
Rhumba somemore

Let's get ready to Rhumba
Let's get ready to Rhumba
Get ready get steady and Rhumba
Everybody Rhumba!

Watch us wreck the floor
Watch us wreck the floor
Rhumba!
(Let's get ready to Rhumba)
(Let's get ready to Rhumba)
Watch us wreck the floor
Watch us wreck the floor
Watch us wreck the floor
Rhumba!

Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose DJ at the Design Museum

The Design Museum, London, features this coming Friday night a Silent Disco collaborative DJ set from Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose, for Care in the Community Recordings, as part of Design Overtime Festival.

The exclusive set will mix the nature and found-sound recordings of The Travelling Mongoose, with instrumental, experimental and furniture music by Ergo Phizmiz created over the past ten years including many new and unreleased pieces, a spot of 78-RPM recordings, and junkshop vinyl.

DESIGN OVERTIME
FESTIVAL
FRIDAY 25 September
6 - 10pm last admission 9.15pm

A last chance to see Super Contemporary at a spectacular late opening, not only is it the London Design Festival but it’s our 20th Birthday too! See the exhibitions and take part in debates and workshops set to a blend of music and entertainment.

Enter the Birthday Cake Bakeoff and make us a cake inspired by iconic design. The best cakes will be put on display for one night only to help us celebrate our twentieth birthday. Email overtime@designmuseum.org or download the Bakeoff brief for details of how to enter and delight in the culinary climax at the Design Overtime. Brace yourselves for our Silent Disco to provide you with a personal soundtrack by which to boogie whilst you draw in the Super Contemporary exhibition.

Tickets £5 in advance, includes entry to all current exhibitions

Go to Design Museum website.

"The Faust Cycle" - World Premiere begins tonight on Soundart Radio

Tonight's the night! The first airing of Ergo's 15 hour housebound necromantic food sex alchemy odyssey. Midnight, UK time, end of Monday going into Tuesday, as it were. Then every night till Friday on Soundart Radio.

Nothing left to do but the credits ...

The Faust Cycle

Written, Composed, Performed & Produced by Ergo Phizmiz

Additional writing by Jack Phoenix

'Little Octet for Assorted Tubes & Cones', 'An Evening in Hell' piano work, and
instrumental collaborations on variations of Erik Satie's 'Le Tango Perpetuel' by Jack Phoenix

'Hell Kebabs' electroacoustic work by Angela Valid

Work for Cello & Electronics by Bela Emerson

Field and Insect Recordings by The Travelling Mongoose and Irene Moon

Trumpet parts composed and performed by Mark Upton

Violin solo composed and performed by Amie Willingale

Additional musicians & composers Margita Zalite, Rebecca Robertson and Aaron Islamb

Editing of workshop recordings by Simon Perry



Contains interpretations of music by
Claudio Monteverdi
Carlo Gesualdo
Melchior Franck
Thomas Ravenscroft
The Four Tops
Peggy Lee
Erik Satie
Sergei Prokofiev
Jacques Offenbach
Arthur Sullivan
Georges Bizet
Camille Saint-Saens
J.S. Bach
Charles Tennier
Giuseppe Verdi
Argentian Tango (Un Chien Andalou)
Cole Porter
W.A. Mozart
Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby



Project consultants Jack Phoenix, The Travelling Mongoose and Martha Moopette



Dr Faustus performed by Zenith Pitts

Eloise performed by Margita Zalite, Rebecca Robertson, Martha Moopette

Gretchen speech devised and performed by Martha Moopette

Dr Faustus in 'Box' operetta performed by Pete Um



Workshops facilitated with Jack Phoenix and Simon Perry, in co-operation with Quay Arts & VentnorBlog



Written & Recorded 2006-2009

Ventnor, Newport, East Cowes, Ryde, Freshwater, Buckfastleigh, Brighton, London (UK)
La Ferriere aux Etangs, La Noe de Fendrement (France)
Tirgu-Mures, Transylvania (Romania)



Thanks to

All the artists involved, Kate, Talulah & Autumn, Jeremy Court, David Fenech, Felix Kubin & Gagarin Records, Vulnavia Vanity, the Faustus of the West Country, Sal & Simon, Matt Johnson, Soundart Radio,Chris, Lucinda, et al, WFMU, Zoe & Storm, Vicki & Peter , Sid & Maz, Jo Hummel Newell & all at Quay, except you know who ...., Penny King & Angela Unsworth at A.c.Eeee, Steven Streight, Chinky Bolin, Soleilmoon, Doyouspeakenglish Radio, Proot Records, Patrick Sims, Sarah & Peter Nelson, Satanicpornocultshop, Tomomi Adachi, Erik Bumbledonk, Anthony Locke

Dedicated to
Joseph Cornell
Ken Campbell
Morecambe & Wise

"The Faust Cycle" - World Premiere of new 15 hour radioplay on Soundart Radio

A new 15 hour adventure for radio from Ergo Phizmiz, supported by Arts Council England, Quay Arts and Ventnor Blog.

Premiering on Soundart Radio, 12-3am from 8th to 12th September

One afternoon Ergo Phizmiz finds himself lumbered into delivering a parcel to the house of legendary alchemist and necromancer Dr Johann Faustus who, since the events of some time ago for which he is renowned, has entered into a rather quieter life in a vast, labyrinthine house, with hundreds of lodgers running the gamut from artists, birds, bird-people, walking fictions, ventriloquists, a Cassowary, running chairs, walking gramophones, and myriad automata.

This enormous dream fable, told through speech, songs, collage and sound-design, is the result of over three years delving down various rabbit-holes, and features collaborations in a range of contexts with artists of many disciplines, including Jack Phoenix, Margita Zalite, Pete Um, Angela Valid, Bela Emerson, Martha Moopette, Amie Willingale, and Zenith Pitts.

In glorious radiophonic technicolour, it is a musical-comedy of disorientation and magick, somewhere between nightmare and the half-remembered childhood whimsy of an insomniac music-hall artiste.

Please note - "The Faust Cycle" is not, necessarily, suitable for sensitive ears at times, containing, as it does, some naughty words, some sexy references, and a healthy smattering of scatological excess.

If you just can't wait, you could do worse than head over and download the free album of instrumental music from The Faust Cycle, "Music From The House of Dr Faustus".

Soundart Radio : Transylvanian Recordings

The next two weeks of Ergo Phizmiz's show on Soundart Radio will be dedicated to recordings of folk music taken in Transylvania, Romania, during the Transymusic project of December 2007.

The recordings were taken on location around the Targu-Mures area of Romania, at Morisena, as part of Iuliana Varodi's Transymusic project.

On these recordings you will hear Ana Nicoara, Varga Iuliu, Barabas Ladiszlau, Demeter Panna Katalin, Mihai Sorohan, Asterix, Alan Marrero, Sebastien Tatar, Asterix, Margita Zalite, Stoica Matei, and the legendary Spoon Man. There are more - but we don't know their names!

You can hear the results of the Transymusic project, new compositions inspired by the Romanian folk music experienced and recorded, at the Transymusic Archive.

Ergo Phizmiz's Soundart Radio show broadcasts Thursday between 2-3pm UK time.

Now That's What We Pump At The Press Release...

We are delighted to announce the online-only, free release of a new album of covers of 1990s chartbusting, dancefloor filling smash hits, arranged for acoustic, electronic, homemade, and toy instruments, by Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists.

"Now That's What We Pump At The Party"

Following in the footsteps of the reviled, acclaimed, maimed and shamed Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra project (also available free), which covered the music of Aphex Twin, the entirety of the second Velvet Underground album, and a selection of 90s & noughties R & B classics for acoustic and toy instrument. This recording, however, moves on from the sound of the Orchestra project, moving into a more band-orientated sound, sounding something similar to strange manic jazz made by psychotic octogenarians on whatever instruments they could find.

For anyone with fond or hate-filled memories of such luminaries as C & C Music Factory,Dee Lite, Lou Bega, Culture Beat, or Snap, this album is for you. Hear Ergo & the Florists tear their way through "Rhythm is Dancer" like a party of wild banshees armed with ukuleles and box drums, or crawling across the bar-room Harmonium on an afterparty "Mambo No 5". Help us call "Mr Vain", complete with toy piano and the Monkton-o-phone, or simply put on your dancing shoes and begrudgingly admit that "Groove is in the Heart", which, hearts in the groove, the Midnight Florists plough through, group falsetti circling like vultures atop the corpse of that 'indestructable medium', the CD.

This album is the first release by the new musical unit The Midnight Florists. The group, on this release, is comprised of Ergo Phizmiz, The Travelling Mongoose, Monkton Wylde and Vulnavia Vanity, all of whom play all manner of instruments and contribute vocals to the release. Special mention should go to The Travelling Mongoose's newfound skills in very, very high falsetto vocals, at which he is an undisputed master.

Download, dance, and tell all your friends .....

Here be the link, on the marvellous WFMU Free Music Archive .....

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ergo_Phizmiz/Now_Thats_What_We_Pump_At_The_Party/

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists "Now That's What We Pump At The Party" - Out now!

The new album of covers of classic chart-busting 1990s dancefloor hits by Ergo Phizmiz and the Midnight Florists is out now. And it's M P Free!

Download it at WFMU Free Music Archive.

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists "Now That's What We Pump At The Party" - New album imminent ....

We are delighted to announce the imminent online release of a new album of cover versions, from the 1990s, by Ergo Phizmiz and The Midnight Florists.

This album is the screaming successor to the Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra project, in which Ergo recreated the music of Aphex Twin, the Velvet Underground, and various nineties and noughties R & B classics. And, of course, the record must be free!

(Although a 10" one day would be nice ...)

The tracklist is:

"Groove Is In The Heart"
"Mr Vain"
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)"
"Gonna Make You Sweat"
"Mambo No 5"
"Rhythm Is A Dancer"

The album is arranged & performed by Ergo Phizmiz, The Travelling Mongoose, Monkton Wylde & Vulnavia Vanity. The elegant Mambo Rocher was away on some shady business trip, but may if time is on our side make an appearance on Blue (Da Ba Dee) along with a spatial gust performance from the good lady Martha of Moopette. Produced by Ergo, with thanks to the Co-Op bins and Vulnavia's astounding business acumen. Recorded at the Mechanischemusikabbinett, this last week but mainly the other day, 2009.

During the sessions Monkton's balls were cupped. But by whom?

And it'll be on this blog very soon..... next day or so is the theory..... tell all your friends and put on your dancing shoes.....

Ambiloop ...

Late night shenanigens with toys and a computer have suddenly become far more fun with marvellous little free piece of looping software Ambiloop ....

... thanks to Steven Streight for pointing us in the right direction ...

Nicolas Cage

To commemorate the impending viewing of the Nicolas Cage remake of "The Wicker Man" tonight (a long-term ambition only just being fulfilled), we are making public Ergo's 2008 Christmas present to Vulnavia Vanity (drummer of The Midnight Florists and designer extraordinaire, who knocked up the above eye candy), a short ditty dedicated to the life and career of the one and only good St Nicolas Cage.

Download it free at WFMU Free Music Archive.

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists "Now That's What I Call Party"

We are delighted to announce the imminent internet-only release of a new covers project, in the spirit of Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra, by Ergo's new compendium of marvellous individuals The Midnight Florists.

A new album entitled "Now That's What I Call Party" will hit the webby shortly, featuring a selection of cover versions of chart-topping party hits from the 1990s.

Delights to look forwards to include covers of "Encore Une Fois", "Rhythm is a Dancer", "Mr Vain", "Blue (Da Ba Dee)", and many other delights.

In the meantime, console your impatience with a sneak preview of the album, a rip roaring run through C & C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat".

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists, Live at Camp Bestival

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists bash out a take on The Rivington's "The Bird's The Word", whilst in the background a crowd of thousands run past attempting to keep out of the rain, which burst from the sky approximately two minutes before the show began.



And an unreleased Ergo Phizmiz song "Something Dirty".



The line-up is Ergo Phizmiz (Voice, Guitar, Ukulele, Accordion), The Travelling Mongoose (Bass), Amie Willingale (Violin, Guitar), Vulnavia Vanity (Drums, Melodica), Monkton Wylde (Toys, Devices and Shapes).

At this point Ergo & The Florists had only been a band for six days. The video was filmed by the master English pipe-smoker, ceramicist and film-maker Martha Moopette. Keep an eye out for the new Ergo Phizmiz album "Things to Do and Make", soon on Care in the Community Recordings.

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists

Oooh look. Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists played a public rehearsal in Buckfastleigh Town Hall yesterday. The thoroughly marvellous locals were good enough to come in and throw some quite special shapes. The song in question is a cover of The Rivington's "The Bird's the Word".

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists

Anyone visiting Camp Bestival can head to the bandstand on Sunday, 4.30pm to see Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists playing songs from the forthcoming "Things to Do and Make" album, due out soon on Care in the Community, aswell as some brand new little numbers, including the dancefloor tearing cover of "The Bird's The Word".

The line-up of the band of ne'er do wells is:

Ergo - Vocals, Guitar, Accordion, Ukulele
The Travelling Mongoose - Bass
Willingale! - Violin & Guitar
Vulnavia Vanity - Drums
Big Boy Salinger - Toys & Stylophone

Good good....

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz playing live in London

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz will be playing live at Cafe Oto, London, on August 1st, wi pth a set consisting of songs and music from their recent releases.

Go here to view a quite lovely page Lady Vicki of Bennett has put together, with images from previous shows and a link to listen to lots of PLU & Ergo's previous collaborative work.

Down By The Stream #3 on Soundart Radio

Tune into Soundart Radio today at 2-3pm UK time, for the third installment of "Down By The Stream", the series of experimental playings-about with radio and sound-design, created in collaboration with sound-artist and field-recordist The Travelling Mongoose.

This episode consists of sounds from across four sessions, with homemade instruments, vinyl collages, foley playing, industrial-ish soundscapes, sound-poetry, and field-recordings.

"Down By The Stream" is an irregular section of Ergo Phizmiz's show on Soundart, which takes no fixed format and shifts between changing ideas and themes every week.

Go here to download "Down By The Stream" 1 & 2

Go here to view a short-film from the "Down By The Stream #2" session

Neighbours!

"Neighbours" - Three pieces of personal agitprop!

The result of increasingly frequent comings to verbal blows with intrusive and arrogant neighbours!

"Trying to Be Peaceful" is a general "bad neighbour" song.

"Old Chap" is for the old chap on one side.

"Turn It Down" is for the lady and gentleman on the other side.

These pieces will be playing on a regular basis in my living room over the coming weeks.

And, in solidarity with anyone else who has neighbours who disturb their peace with idiocy and condescension, I am offering to produce, free of charge, a custom-made song that you can play on a regular basis, just loud enough for the neighbours to hear the lyrics. Send a paragraph detailing your neighbourly situation, and what the problems are, and you, too, soon enough will have an Ergo Phizmiz song all of your own with which to do battle with bad, rude and miserable neighbours.

Written, Composed, Performed & Produced by Ergo Phizmiz, July 4th 2009.

Download "Neighbours" at WFMU Free Music Archive.

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz "Rhapsody in Glue" Now Free!

The second People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz album "Rhapsody in Glue" can now be downloaded free at Ubuweb.

PRESS RELEASE FROM 2008

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz are pleased to announce the release of a new online-only album, "Rhapsody in Glue".

Following the success of the critically acclaimed "Perpetuum Mobile" CD of 2007, renowned UK collagists / composers People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz reunite for "Rhapsody in Glue", a cycle of bricolage-ballet-music, skewed-waltzes, and skewiff-pop.

There is a story behind every album, and with "Rhapsody in Glue" we find a unique approach to constructing a record. Both long-term contributors to New York radio station WFMU, People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz decided to publicly tear apart their respective practices and create an album "in the open", presenting on a seafood-filled-platter the process of collaborative collage composition - informally discussing and jabbering nonsense to one another, resulting in the "Codpaste" free podcast series. "Rhapsody in Glue" is the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.

"Rhapsody in Glue" continues in the bizarre ballroom vein of their previous efforts together, however,increasing the sonic palette into textural depths previously uncharted in their work. If "Carmic Waltz" is an expressionist painting by aged ballroom dance teacher who's eaten the wrong kind of mushrooms in her soufflŽ, then "Gary's Anatomy" is a slice of pure absurdist pop shot through with slabs of exotica and Ethel Merman. Recurring through the record is an apparent obsession with Prokofiev's "Troika (Sleigh Ride)", which merges and mashes with Burt Bacharach and Queen on "Snow Day", and lapses into pure fantasy on the almost entirely acoustic "Withers in the Whist", jarring with Ergo's strange, Victoriana obsessed lyrics. Then on "Dancing in the Carmen" we discover what happens if Nana Mouskouri is thrown into a pot with Peggy Lee and let simmer for 10 minutes, whilst "In The Waking" shimmers along on multitracked guitars, meandering melodies, and music boxes.

"Sticky White Glue" download time .... and then some "Codpaste"!

The first release in the Collected Radio Works by Ergo Phizmiz, spanning over 30 hours of experimental radio across sound-collage, spoken-word & radioplays, large-scale instrumental compositions, songs, ambient & furniture music, musique-concrete, installations, and sound-poetry, produced between 2000-2008.

"Ergo Phizmiz's Sticky White Glue, a twelve-part series of sound montages--voices, music, and plunderphonic juxtapositions of the two--reminds us why radio has been described as "schizophonic," packing more disembodied sounds and voices than the ear can process" - Artforum magazine

This series "Sticky White Glue" first aired 2003-2004 on Resonance FM, London, and was repeated 2009 on Soundart Radio, Dartington. Segments of the pieces were also broadcast by Kenny G on WFMU. It is a fanciful play-around with the juxtapositions of instruments & voices with sampling and digital composition, and features as its main protagonists Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy.

Download it at WFMU's Free Music Archive.

And then, blimeyblimey, we are are delighted to also present a permanent archive of "Codpaste" by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz.

"Codpaste" was a weekly podcast series in which the two artists attempted to compose collage music from the very beginning, in a "work in progress" style, attempting to open up the creative process. The theory is that it is rare to see compositions made from the outset, and usually the audience are only invited in once the piece is finished, done and dusted. These weekly programmes were expanded into a digital-only album entitled “Rhapsody in Glue”.

Download Codpaste at Free Music Archive.

New, free EP "Earballet - Don Quixote" out now...

Hot of the presses, a new five-track EP of instrumental music by Ergo Phizmiz.

"Earballet - Don Quixote" takes five scenes from Cervantes' novel as the basis of compositions, written for acoustic, electric, and homemade instruments, with voices and field-recordings.

It's an indicator of Ergo's more recent sound, sort of instrumental tapestries.

You can download this EP free at the WFMU Free Music Archive.

Introducing ..... The Snow Flea

We are jolly excited to point you in the right direction for the first images and sounds from "The Snow Flea", a forthcoming new puppet opera from Buchinger's Boot Marionettes, with musical score by Ergo Phizmiz.

Go to Buchinger's Boot Snow Flea page.

The score is arranged for acoustic instrumentation, & electronically manipulated recordings of instruments, combined with samples of traditional Inuit music and Arctic field-recordings

And exclusively to this blog, here's an mp3 of a sequence showing a Raven fighting over a fish with a seagull.

Then if you're thirsty for more Snow Flea previews, you could do worse than try on James Tregaskis' Outsider In with Ergo Phizmiz.

The Snow Flea premieres in Marseilles, November 2009.

Komediergophizmiz!

From deep, deep in the Phizmiz vaults come these two nuggets of delight from 2003.

Written by Ergo Phizmiz, and performed by comic genius and Renaissance man Erik Bumbledonk, who uploaded these gems previously thought lost to the big cardboard box of eternally disappeared CDrs.




"Santa Claus gets relatively bored sat in his little cupboard everyday by himself. Throughout the course of the year while he waits for Christmas to happen, this is what he does."











"Its hard being a stand-up comedian. It gets even harder when you get a big laugh though. Featuring birds." * Note: those of you with either minors or miners may be warned that this piece has a few rather rude words in and also features Erik Bumbledonk's slice of hanging beef! *






More glorious Bumbledonk here.

Music from "The House of Dr Faustus"

The first material to be released from Ergo Phizmiz's large scale radio work "The House of Dr Faustus", a real labour of love now nearing completion, has just hit the web!

'Music from "The House of Dr Faustus"' is an hour of new instrumental Ergo Phizmusic created over the last two years, basically the soundtrack album to the radioplay, a Surrealist journey into a house with a depth of hundreds of miles.

It is also the first release displaying Ergo's more recent stylistic developments, with a greater focus on instrumentation and detailed arrangements. "Gretchen's Tango" dreams woozily about on harmoniums and multitracked trumpets, whilst "Music For Darkness" visualises an immense black, timeless space with thumping violas, Cajon and harmonica. Also pay a visit to a "Dream Garden", experience the "Death Dance of David Niven", or sink into the "Music For an Underground Circus".

This release is available in high quality mp3 format, completely free ....

You can stream or download it at the WFMU Free Music Archive.

Collating the freebies ....

We thought this an apt time to collate in one place all the music and radio-art given away completely free so far through this blog, so here we go ....

Talulah & the Baron : Radio for Children

Pointballing : Behind-the-Scenes Recording

Down By The Stream, with Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose

Zdenek Liska Mix

Ergo Phizmiz on "Outsider In"

Ergo Phizmiz & Margita Zalite "Lamps & Chairs : Music for Interior Design"

New Adventures & Remixes of Vernon Lenoir

Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra : Plays Aphex Twin, White Light/White Heat, Arff & Beef

Un Nuit Dystopia/Hommage Michel Foucault (compilation)

Poetry Lab, on BBC Radio 3

Ergo Phizmiz has composed the new theme tune for Poetry Lab on BBC Radio 3's The Verb. This will premiere this coming Friday (June 5th) at 2115 UK time.

Talulah & The Baron : Radio for Children

We are delighted to present the pilot episode "Talulah and the Baron", a new Ergo Phizmiz radio piece from a project-in-progress in children's radio.

Talulah and the Baron is a fantasy in sound-design, composition, song, and slapstick.

Voices are by Talulah Lotus & Autumn Poppy, my lovely daughters.

Sound-Design by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose

Text, Narration, Composition, Production by Ergo Phizmiz

You can download phorphree at WFMU Free Music Archive.

Ergo Phizmiz "Sticky White Glue" - Vintage Phizmiz radio series on Soundart Radio

Tune in to Ergo Phizmiz's show on Soundart Radio for the next six weeks to hear a piece of Phizmiz history!

"Sticky White Glue", a 12 part radio-art series originally created for Resonance FM between 2003-2004 and not broadcast since, was the foundation for everything that blasted out of the various Phizmiz studios since. The first time Ergo fully explored, in rich and intricate combinations, the relationships between sampling, live instrumentation, sound-poetry, musique-concrete, and vocals, it was the huge brainstorm that started everything that came since.

ArtForum magazine, back in the day, said "Ergo Phizmiz's Sticky White Glue, a twelve-part series of sound montages--voices, music, and plunderphonic juxtapositions of the two--reminds us why radio has been described as "schizophonic," packing more disembodied sounds and voices than the ear can process", and webzine Robots & Electronics Brains described it as "genius". Vicki Bennett, aka People Like Us, described the show as every episode being like an album in itself.

The series was jam-packed full of collages, songs, wild fantasias jumping between and exploratively combining instruments and samples, noise compositions, electronic and electroacoustic music, and a generous serving of Laurel & Hardy, to whom the series was dedicated. It also features contributions from many long term Ergo collaborators, including Martha Moopette, Erik Bumbledonk (who covers the Disney song "Beauty and the Beast" to hilarious effect), and The Travelling Mongoose.

So - tune in to Soundart Radio at 2pm UK time Thursdays, starting May 21. Each episode of the Soundart broadcast will contain two episodes of SWG.

And if all that hasn't whetted your appetite enough, here is an eight minute mp3 extract of SWG episode 9.

Ergo on Twitter

We couldn't resist the temptation any longer .... www.twitter.com/ergophizmiz

Filmed at the Mechanischemusikkabinett : Silent Bill

The final installment of this evening's video delights is a new animated film "Silent Bill" with text, animation and music by Ergo Phizmiz.

Filmed at the Mechanischemusikkabinett : Bally Buttons - A Studio Improvisation

The second of tonight's splurge of new videos from the laboratory is "Bally Buttons", a studio improvisation by Ergo Phizmiz.

Filmed at the Mechanischemusikkabinett : Down By The Stream

The first in a bunch, or a daker's bozen, of new short films, shot at Ergo's workshop the Mechanischemusikkabinett.



The first is a jaunty peek at the world of "Down By The Stream", Ergo's occasional shows with The Travelling Mongoose, which take place on Ergo's Soundart Radio show.

Pointballing 2 : Macaroon - On BBC Radio 3 tonight

Tune into The Verb on BBC Radio 3 tonight for the second instalment of Ergo Phizmiz's "Pointballing". In a Victorian themed special of The Verb, Ergo presents a radiophonic adventure in spoken-word, sound-design, songs, and music, set during the reign of old Queen Vic - a kind of puppet-theatre for the ears.

From Radio 3:

As part of BBC Radio 3's Mendelssohn Weekend, Ian MacMillan's weekly programme dedicated to poetry and the spoken word explores the literary life of the 19th century, from its grand visions and Romanticism to its more curious and eccentric writers. Novelist and The Verb regular Toby Litt talks about some of the lesser-known poet laureates of the period, including Robert Southey, William Wordsworth and the unfortunate Alfred Austin, Tennyson's much-mocked successor, whom Robert Browning dismissed as the 'Banjo Byron'. Ergo Phizmiz presents some 'pointballing', his series of eclectic experiments in sound and language, this time with a Victorian flavour and in the spirit of the nonsense poetry of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. And novelist Gregory Norminton, author of Serious Things, reads The Chronic Omnibus, his new Wellsian tale of how the Victorians saw the future.

And exclusive to this blog in mp3, a sneak preview "behind-the-scenes" of the production of Pointballing, featuring recordings from the foley session joined by The Travelling Mongoose.

The Verb is on at 9.30pm (UK time) on BBC Radio 3, and the show will be available for one week afterwards in BBC iPlayer.

Sounds of Soviet Animation Rebroadcast on Soundart Radio

This week's Ergo Phizmiz show on Soundart Radio is a broadcast of the Sounds of Soviet Animation podcasts, originally broadcast on WFMU. The show is an intricate and closely edited collage of music and sound-design from films created at the legendary Soyuzmultfilm studios.

In the show, you hear such gems as ...

Ideya Garanina "Cabaret"
A. Babaev "Story of One Crime"
N. Bogoslovski "My Green Crocodile"
Alfred Schnittke "Butterfly"
Yuri Norstein "Tale of Tales"
V. Dashkevich "Mountain of Dinosaurs"
B. Shapner "Man in the Frame"
A. Babaev "Story of One Crime"
Vadim Kurchevsky "Liberated Don Quixote"
Alfred Schnittke "Ballerina on a Boat"
M. Meyerovitch "Fox & Rabbit"
Alfred Schnittke "Glass Harmonica"
Nina Shorina "Door"
Natalia Golovanova "Cat & Clown"
Anatoly Petrov "Singing Teacher"
M. Meyerovich / Y. Norstein "Hedgehog in the Fog"
N. Golovanva / V. Artemov "Boy is a Boy"
A. Khrjanovsky / V. Shumova "King's Sandwich"
V. Tarasov "Contact"
A. Petrov "Firing Range"
I. Ivanov-Vano / Tchaikovsky "Seasons"
N. Serabryakov / E. Artemiev "Ball of Wool"

Ergo's Soundart Radio show broadcasts 2-3pm UK time on Thursdays. Listen online here.

Down By The Stream #2 Playlist & Download

If you tuned into Soundart Radio this afternoon at 2pm UK time, you will have heard some new toying about with radio by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose, in the shape of the second episode of their irregular "Down By The Stream" shows.

In this show, interspersed with found-sounds, foley, field-recordings, spoken-word, and various other ways of playing about with their favourite medium, we heard (roughly and in no particular order):

Frankie Valli "Grease"
Grange Hill Cast "Just Say No"
Siegfried Wendel "Oldtime Music"
BBC "50 Years of the BBC"
Papadopoulous, Kowald & Floridis "Pyrichia"
Aaron Islamb "Boss Yourself"
The Music of Portsmouth
Indian Summer 12"
Cozy Powell 7"
Buxtehude Fugue
Benjamin Britten "Dances From Gloriana"
Stravinsky "The Firebird (Suite)"
Lord Kitchener "Dr Kitch"
Mr Bach Goes to Town
Disney "Pinocchio"
HMV Vehicle Sound Effects
David Tomlinson "The Life I Lead"
All Star Jazz Festival
Darius Milhaud "Cantate de la Paix"
Kathleen Ferrier 10"
Indo-Jazz Suite
Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals"
How To Give Yourself a Stereo Checkout
Disney French 101 Dalmatians 7"

Interview with Chinky Bolin

Mix by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose

Field-Recordings by The Travelling Mongoose

Produced by Ergo Phizmiz


You can download this show in high-quality mp3 below:

Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose "Down By The Stream #2"

And while you're at it, why not grab the first episode too:

Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose "Down By The Stream #1"


"Down By The Stream", the latest project of Ergo's long running collaboration with the Mongoose, takes place on an irregular basis, as part of Ergo Phizmiz's experimental weekly show on Soundart Radio, Dartington, UK.

Down By The Stream #2 on Soundart Radio

Ergo Phizmiz and compadre The Travelling Mongoose put on their fishing hats and go for another amiable chat and extended sit Down By The Stream, on Soundart Radio this Thursday 30/04/09, 2pm UK time.

This is the second in an occasional series, in which Ergo & the Mongoose fuse old vinyl, original field-recordings & found-sound, collage-composition, spoken-word, and foley.

The show will be made available as an mp3 download from this blog after the broadcast. Go to Soundart Radio.

For the first of the Down By The Stream shows in mp3, go here.

And for previous experimental mix radio madness with Ergo & the Mongoose you could do worse than listen to the 2007 podcasts of Time Travel Musical Bazaar on WFMU.

Zdenek Liska Mix Download

As promised in the previous post, here is a download of this week's Ergo Phizmiz show on Soundart Radio -a one hour mix of rare music from Czech film composition master Zdenek Liska.

Zdenek Liska Special - on Soundart Radio

Tune in to Ergo's show on Soundart Radio this week for a one hour special of rare music from Czech film composer Zdenek Liska.

Liska scored hundreds of films, including the classic "Marketa Lazarova", and many scores for Surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer, and multimedia animation pioneer Karel Zeman.

This is the second special Ergo has created around Liska's music, the first - which focused mainly on the Svankmajer soundtracks - was on WFMU's Phuj Phactory, and can be heard here.

This new Liska special will be made available as an mp3 from this blog after the show, which broadcasts on Soundart Radio, this coming Thursday 23rd April at 2pm UK time.

More Pointballing on the way.... BBC Radio 3

The Verb

Friday 8 May

9.15-10.00pm BBC RADIO 3

The Verb goes Victorian tonight as part of BBC Radio 3's Mendelssohn season marking the bicentenary of the composer's birth. Ian MacMillan's weekly programme dedicated to poetry and the spoken word explores the literary life of the 19th century, from its grand visions and Romanticism to its more curious writerly corners and eccentricities.

Novelist Toby Litt offers a guide to the Poets Laureate who were not Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson, of course, bestrides the era like a colossus as Queen Victoria's favourite Poet Laureate and the author of In Memoriam, the work that comforted her in her widowhood. But, Toby asks, what about the laureateships of Robert Southey, William Wordsworth and the unfortunate Alfred Austin, Tennyson's much-mocked successor, who Robert Browning dismissed as the "Banjo Byron" for his ill-judged doggerel?

Ergo Phizmiz, meanwhile, beckons listeners into the garden for a spot of "Pointballing", his series of eclectic experiments in sound and language. This week, Ergo's work has a distinctly Victorian flavour to its chaos, in the spirit of the nonsense work of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.

And novelist Gregory Norminton, author of Serious Things, reads The Chronic Omnibus, his brand new "Wellesian" tale of how the Victorians saw the future.

Ergo Live in Odense

Another video pops up, we suspect from the camera of Pete Um, of Ergo playing on the Gagarin tour, this time playing the unreleased "Press My Button Soon" in Odense.

The Invention of Birds : Film

A short film of Ergo Phizmiz's recent installation "The Invention of Birds".

Ergo Live in Mannheim - Video

A short clip of Ergo Phizmiz performing sections of "Eloise My Dolly" in Mannheim, during the Gagarin Records 10 Year Anniversary tour.

Ergo Phizmiz on Outsider In - Resonance FM podcast

This episode of Outsider In takes us down to South Devon to meet Ergo Phizmiz. We hear some of his new work including "The Munchausen Machine" and temporarily named "The Ice Cream Music" We hear the origins, influences, interests and share a brew with this highly talented composer, radio dj and sound artist, also of his collaboration with People Like Us - who will be our guest in the next episode of Outsider In.

Download it at Resonance FM Podcasts.

Ergo Phizmiz & Margita Zalite "Lamps and Chairs : Music for Interior Design"

... 23 musical miniatures

... music to look at furniture by

... and some musique d'ameublement

... download free at WFMU Free Music Archive

Carnival

A short animated film made during January workshops at Ryde Foyer, Isle of Wight, facilitated with film-maker Tom Hicks.

Ergo Phizmiz on Outsider In, Resonance FM

Tune into Resonance FM Saturday 11 April, 20:00 UK time for an hour of music and babbling with Ergo Phizmiz, presented by James Tregaskis.

"Outsider In, as its title suggests may (or may not) inform the listener of the strange world of the Outsider musician/artist. It may (or may not) include some music made by the outsider musician."

This particular edition features a bunch of unreleased music from the Phizmiz vaults, and you can also find out the one musician who really makes Ergo reach for the shotgun and the earmuffs.

New Adventures and Remixes of Vernon Lenoir

From prootrecords.free.fr :

After 2 years of silence, Vernon LeNoir returns with a new album. Inspired by intense meditation in the Prometheus monastery in the caucasian mountains, a pilgrimage along the paths of St. George and a shaman ritual in Siberia he returns with the concept of faith : defined in syncopatic chants, transcribed to western notation and substituted by fragments of popular music.Because in early Coptic churches each breath represents an adventure of the soul - here come the "New Adventures Of Vernon LeNoir".

But there is more : alongside LeNoir's new album, there is an extra EP with remixes by artists he adores and worships every second and who, with their music, bring joy into our lives just like Prometheus brought fire to man.These Artists are : Ergo Phizmiz - Okapi - Tep - End. - Satanicpornocultshop - Thiaz Itch.

Go to Proot to download these slices of sonic wonderbread absolutely freeeee.

Pointballing - On "The Verb", BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3's 'cabaret of spoken-word' The Verb will be presenting the first of a new Ergo Phizmiz project called "Pointballing", tomorrow night, Friday 27th March.

Pointballing is the first of what will be a number of short pieces of playful, nonsensical radio-art, with spoken-word, original music and sound-effects, written, performed and produced by Ergo Phizmiz.

Tune in ... 90-93 FM, on digital, or online at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

The programme, which also features Graham Swift and Tomas Venclova, goes out 27/03/09, and will be available through the BBC's "Listen Again" service for one week after broadcast at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/theverb

Ergo Phizmiz on Soundart Radio & "Down By The Stream"

Ergo Phizmiz recently started weekly shows on Dartington, UK, radio station Soundart Radio, which run weekly on Thursdays at 2-3 UK time.

The shows are of no fixed format, keeping the shows open for fun and experimentation, and every third week of the month will feature "Down By The Stream", a new collaborative turntable and field-recording fiesta with The Travelling Mongoose, who previously worked with Ergo on the Uutske Buutske project, and the WFMU Time Travel Musical Bazaar podcasts.

"Down By The Stream" will also be available as mp3s from this blog, on the third Thursday of each month, so here, my dears, is the first one.

Down By The Stream, by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose, Show 1

Turntables by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose
Field-Recordings by The Travelling Mongoose
Featuring two spoken-word pieces by Jack Phoenix
Produced by Ergo Phizmiz

Occasionally other shows from the Soundart Radio series will be available as mp3, but for legal reasons the straightforward track-mix shows will not be. So in that case you'll have to tune in to future episodes, which you can stream from Soundart Radio.

Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra "Plays Aphex Twin", "White Light, White Heat", "Arff & Beef"

For the first time, the complete recordings of the "Ergo Phizmiz and his Orchestra" project are presented in their entirety, free of charge, for your delight and delectation.

The project comprised covers of pop music from various meanings of the word 'pop', comprising an album of reinventions and interpretations of the music of Aphex Twin, a cover of the entirety of the second Velvet Underground album, and finally a set of versions of 90s and noughties R & B classics, from Destiny's Child, through Kelis, Missy Elliott, and trousersnake himself.


"Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra plays Aphex Twin" (2003)

1. Hephalumps
2. My Special Party
3. Vordhosbn With After Dinner Mints
4. Wendy House Lockets
5. Laughable Hed Pedro
6. Honour Roman Nip
7. Michel & Michael Concentrate on the Brass
8. Clay Hills Cop
9. Come to Debbie

"Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra: White Light, White Heat" (2004)

1. White Light, White Heat
2. The Gift
3. Lady Godiva's Operation
4. Here She Comes Now
5. I Heard Her Call My Name
6. Sister Ray

"Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra: Arff & Beef" (2005)

1. Survivor
2. Trick Me
3. Get Ur Freak On
4. Rock Your Body
5. (Doo Wop) That Thing
6. Hollaback Girl

* * *

All tracks arranged, performed and produced by Ergo Phizmiz

Vocals on "Honour Roman Nip", "Here She Comes Now", "Survivor", "Get Ur Freak On", and "(Doo Wop) That Thing" by Martha Moopette

Vocal on "The Gift" by Dirty Duck

"Arff & Beef" & "White Light, White Heat" previously released as a limited run on Womb Records, given away with the first 150 copies of "Nose Points in Different Directions"

"... plays Aphex Twin" previously not released on Rephlex, Solnze, and Slag Records

Thanks for listening, enjoy!

The Invention of Birds : Photographs

Thanks to the wonder of photography you can now see images from Ergo Phizmiz's recent installation "The Invention of Birds".

You can do so by clicking here.

The Invention of Birds @ First Spark Festival, Dartington, UK

Running from February 4th - 14th at Dartington Gallery, Ergo Phizmiz presents a new installation "The Invention of Birds". Comprising new collages, animations, objects, and two hours of new music & sound-design, the installation takes place as part of the First Spark Festival of Soundart Radio.

For more information about this and the myriad other marvellous events and broadcasts taking place, visit Soundart Radio.

And if you're somewhere too far away to visit, you can tune in online to hear the launch night on 4th February 6-8pm UK time featuring an improvised mix from Ergo Phizmiz & DJ Salinger, plus a 24 hour stream from the installation on Sunday 8th February.

Diddly-Dee-Diddly-Da, as Reginald Gardner once intoned .....

Many interesting and lovely things happening this year.....

Coming soon there'll be the new album "Things to Do and Make" on Care in the Community Recordings, preceded by a single "Food and War" featuring B-side cover by R. Stevie Moore. A tour is planned to accompany the album release. The new LP showcases Ergo's songwriting through two solid sides of eccentric pop goodness, and will also be accompanied by an online version of the complete sessions for the album, with more than two hours of extra material not included on the album.

Collaborations are on the cards with Klimperei, David Fenech, R. Stevie Moore, Jack Phoenix, Margite Zalite, The Travelling Mongoose, Thomas Hicks, and Buchinger's Boot Marionettes. These collaborations will run across radio, albums, workshops, television, soundtracks, and theatre.

Towards the end of the year we'll see the podcast of Ergo's radiouberwork "The Faust Cycle" - a ten part radio adventure that has taken up the best part of the last two years. This podcast will also be followed by an installation and an album release of music from the series on Soleilmoon. Alongside Ergo taking part in various ways in this radiophonic extravaganza are Jack Phoenix, Margite Zalite, Felix Kubin, Irene Moon, Pete Um, Matt Johnson, Zenith Pitts, Martha Moopette, Mystoffeles Valentine, and Angela Valid. Coinciding in 2009 with this will be the launch of Ergo Phizmiz's (almost) complete radio works from 1999-2009 in high-quality mp3 at the ever marvellous Ubuweb.

Also keep an eye out for the release on Cataclyst Records of "Chronicles of the Suspicious Gentlemen" in the later part of the year, and a new commission for BBC Radio 3 about the painter Paul Klee and his relationship with music. Ergo is also currently working on a number of projects in broadcast media for children.

On the live front, also keep an eye out for live shows in collaboration with People Like Us. The best place to keep up to date with live shows is at www.myspace.com/ergophizmiz .

So, busy times afoot, and full steam ahead ..... happy new year ....