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.