Ergo Phizmiz 2010 Retrospective

2010 has been a very busy year indeed in Phizmiz towers, so we thought it an opportune moment for a flashback...

"The Faust Cycle"

The year began with the release on Headphonica of "The Faust Cycle", Ergo's epic 15 hour adventure in sound, released under for free under a Creative Commons license. The album has now been downloaded by in excess of 5,000 listeners, and has been broadcast on stations across the globe. Although generally ignored by the conventional media, the enlightened blogosphere acclaimed the work wholeheartedly, with Continuo describing the piece as "the most ambitious music project conceived in the 21st century and certainly the only one able to change your listening habits." Download "The Faust Cycle" at Headphonica. This was shortly followed by a remix project "The Faust Re.Cycled", also available at Headphonica here.

"The Mourning Show"

The Mourning Show from Tête à Tête on Vimeo.

Ergo Phizmiz's opera about radio, magic, death and UK radio DJ Chris Evans was commissioned by and premiered at De Player in Rotterdam, with further performance in Nijmegen and Brussels. Vital Weekly described it as "an excellent opera which brought plunderphonics to a new level". The show received it's UK premiere in August, at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival.

"Things To Do and Make"

Ergo's pop album was released on Care in the Community Recordings earlier in the year to widespread critical acclaim. Pennyblack Music said "The first major and mainstream Ergo Phizmiz album may be a small independent release, but this album goes to show how major record companies have lost touch completely. It's the kind of listening experience that will force you to shut down your mobile and close your Twitter and Facebook accounts." The album can be bought at the majority of music retailers online and in some shops, whatever they are....

"The Keystone Cut-Ups"

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz "Blue Moon" [2010] from Vicki WFMU on Vimeo.

The long running collaboration between Ergo Phizmiz & collagist People Like Us continued in the form of "The Keystone Cut-Ups", an A/V work playing with the relationships between early silent cinema and Surrealist cinema. The piece was commissioned by and premiered at Berwick Film & Media Festival, with further performances scheduled for 2011.

"Music For The Jilted Generation"

Continuing his long line of albums of cover versions of popular classics, the marvellous UpItUp Records released Ergo Phizmiz's retake for acoustic instruments of the entirety of The Prodigy's "Music For The Jilted Generation". This release also came with a handy zip file of all of Ergo's cover versions from 2003-2010, and you can grab it all, free, here.

"Collected Sound Installations"

Surrism-Phonoethics recently released Ergo Phizmiz's Collected Sound Installations from 2001-2010, 4.5 hours of Ergo's most experimental music including "Forest", "The Phantom Organ" and "Music For Squares and Spinning". You can grab that, for free, right here.

Chinstrap - The netlabel from Ergo Phizmiz

Since January Ergo has been running a free, Creative Commons netlabel. Now with 15 published releases, the label has put out work by artists including Oblivian Substanshall, Vulnavia Vanity, Angela Valid, The Travelling Mongoose, and The Superfools, including soundtracks, children's music, musique-concrete, sampling, improvisation, radio-art and songwriting. You can download all releases from the Chinstrap blog, which can also be accessed in one convenient list here.

And more ....

This year Ergo also ..... received a grant to produce a new work called "Fulcanelli's Shoes" which premieres in February 2011; played live shows across the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain; composed additional music for Frankie Boyle's "Tramadol Nights" on Channel 4; re-released remastered versions of archive pieces including "M: 1000 Year Mix" & "Cinemacollages"; a sound-installation for the Depozitory on the Isle of Wight; and received the Special Mention in composed radio for his work "Paul Klee, a Balloon, the Moon, Music and Me" at the Prix Italia. This year he has been written about in The Guardian, The Times, The Wire, and Mojo magazine, aswell as comprehensive interviews on Tokafi, Popshifter, and Intangible23.

The year ends with a Christmas Eve mix from Ergo Phizmiz on Tom Ravenscroft's BBC 6Music show, which you can find out all about here.

Wishing you all a marvellous end of the year, and a excellent next one....

Website redesign

The Ergo Phizmiz website at ergophizmiz.net has currently undergone a swanky new redesign... head over and have a peep..

Dear Mr Cameron, Dear Mrs Clegg

"Dear Mr Cameron, Dear Mrs Clegg" by Ergo Phizmiz
Dedicated to marching students, UK Uncut, and glorious civil disobedience in the face of idiocy

Dear Mr Cameron, Dear Mrs Clegg
I've got a few questions, not pullin' yer leg,
so please give a listen, I really must beg
for a moment of your precious time.

A big surprise what they're doing to our country....

You'd like all the people to sit down in silence
and certainly abstain from abhorrent violence
but how can we sit in contentment to christen
your system, when clearly you're not going to listen

The bankers, the bonuses, bona fide bastards
are supping the champagne, expensively plastered
you speak of recession and endless cutbacks
whilst most of your chummies are dodging their tax

Dear Mr Cameron, Dear Mrs Clegg
I'm not being funny, but do you expect
all the people to sit down and quietly reflect
on the rug being pulled underfoot?

Mrs Clegg, you are sat in your warm, comfy office, ye
got there by mast'ring the fine art of sophistry,
Cameron, can't quite believe that you got your wish,
always presumed you were grown in a petri dish.

What will become of the hope and the glory
the future will tell an abominable story
Deeply I want to say "Better beware"
but the truth is that, surely, you really don't care

Keep the rich even richer
the poor even poorer
And slowly but surely
and surely and surer
the present kills future
the parents eat infants
and all of our culture
devolves into fragments
and eats itself
where is your sense of posterity
look past your pockets and into the futurey

Dear Mr Cameron, Dear Mrs Clegg
A terrible rhyme, I know, but I must beg
that you pull out your earplugs, use your fucking heads
or you'll sink us all into the water
sink us all into the sea - er
we might as well be North Korea

tell all the police stop the fear
our country's become rather queer
that's just about all now my dear
just about all now my dear...

In a green and pleasant land sitting
Watching clouds a running by
Take the heart from the unwitting
Pull the sunshine from the sky

Dear Mr Cameron, Dear Mr Clegg
Beyond the issue of expense,
have some bloody sense....

Ergo Phizmiz mix on Tom Ravenscroft, BBC6 Music, Christmas Eve

Ergo has produced a 20 minute mix of seasonal mash and pudding for Tom Ravenscroft's Christmas Eve show, which airs from 9pm UK time on, you guessed it, 24th December 2010.

The mix is preceded by a special Christmas greeting from Ergo, which features tits. The mix will also contain an exclusive new track from Mr Phizmiz, a cover version of one of everybody's favourite seasonal classics.

So tune into to Tom on 6, Christmas Eve, get the mulled wine on, and prepare for some seasonal dastardliness.......

And if you just can't wait that long, you could do worse than massage your cold ears with Ergo Phizmiz's previous Christmas offering "Turkey Party".

Ergo Phizmiz "Pointballing" Live at Whitechapel Gallery, November 2010

Ergo Phizmiz performs "Pointballing : 1 - What The Pig Meant" at his marathon 2 hour one-man show, November 2010, at Whitechapel Gallery, London.

Ergo Phizmiz interviewed by Ayoze Garcia

On a recent trip to Barcelona Ergo Phizmiz was interviewed in-depth on the telephone by Ayoze Garcia on Intangible23, who earlier in the year wrote detailed analyses of every episode of "The Faust Cycle".

The interview, which spans Ergo's "Collected Sound Installations", the album "Things to Do and Make", the death opera "The Mourning Show", and netlabel Chinstrap, features Spanish language text, with English language audio of the interview. You can read / listen here.

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

Frankie Boyle's new series for Channel 4, beginning 30/11/10, features two new short compositions from Ergo Phizmiz.

"This six-part series combines Frankie's outrageous and often controversial stand up with pre-filmed sketches in which he picks apart all aspects of modern life. Everything is given a uniquely Frankie spin - scabrous, sharp and scathing - for no-holds-barred comedy that promises Boyle with extra added bite."

Go to Tramadol Nights at Channel 4.

Ergo Phizmiz - Collected Sound Installations 2002-2010

suRRism-Phonoethics proudly presents Ergo Phizmiz 'Collected Sound Installations 2002-2010'!

'Ergo Phizmiz¬
...with lips of rusty time across comes and umbrella my sound
screaming fast tackled idea crumbling neck folding squiRts...
i upon coin less mentions 'a true threshold of infinity'
this music more than a quantum classical deterministic probability!
interpretations do apply most there & within well
as those aspects will invent probabilities...
irreducible wonderland quality in mathematics!
ceiling, and bag came left to the "off" then slow smacking the another "why"
just sprung the brake, fire see plastic...
though sin{ema} have any here together - fruit & put else, concrete dazzlingly feathers
releasing uncapped and tossed captured frames gathered as one perennial!'

-undRess Béton

Receive your eligible copy here:
Ergo Phizmiz - 'Collected Sound Installations' (mp3 and covers)
or here: Ergo Phizmiz at Internet Archive

Whitechapel

Whitechapel Gallery, London, Thursday 25 November, 8p. £7.00

Ergo Phizmiz will perform acoustic versions of his most recent album Things To Do and Make that Mojo have said " sounds like Vivian Stanshall, Syd Barratt and Dali making merry" together with performed excerpts from other works such as The Mourning Show opera , more recently penned eccentric pop and the contextualising, both visually and culinary, of the Things To Do and Make sleeve artwork.

Multi-instrumentalist, composer and “musical man of the moment” (The Times) Ergo Phizmiz will present an informal seminar introducing his diverse practice followed by a performance of solo interpretations of his most recent album Things To Do and Make.

The event will also take the opportunity to show rarely seen images of Stanley Green, the dietary reformer, pamphleteer and regular fixture on Oxford Street between 1968-1993 who formed the inspiration for the sleeve art of Ergo’s album. A small selection of Green’s strict diet will be available to sample during the break and Ergo will perform a specially commissioned song about this London eccentric for voice and recorder, the instrument Green played in rare moments of time off.

Ergo Phizmiz first came to attention for his unique approach to sampling and sound collage for which he is noted in John Peel’s autobiography and his ability in numerous other genres has also become highly regarded. Ergo recently received the Special Mention at the prestigious Prix Italia for a BBC radio 3 commission, has written a score for a Christian Marclay film and received encouragement from Simpsons creator Matt Groening who claims to play his music while at the drawing board. In the past couple of years Ergo has begun to write operatic works again, something he did as a precocious teenager, but his first foray into the “eccentric pop” of Things To Do and Make marks another new direction. The combination of his unique absurdist humour and inventiveness within a pop song structure has gained widespread recognition from national broadsheets and leading music press with the Guardian compelled to say “we can’t decide whether he’s the new Viv Stanshall, a young Eno, a British Zappa or a replacement for Frank Sidebottom” and Mojo to proclaim him as an up and coming songwriter to watch.

Curated by Care in the Community Recordings
care in the community audiovisual
care in the community recordings

Tickets here.

Ergo Phizmiz Live - November 2010

Ergo Phizmiz is playing a number of live shows at the end of the month. Come along and say hello!



20.11.10 - Don't Drop The Dumbells, Liverpool, presented by UpItUp Records
24.11.10 - Resonance FM, Live session (broadcast)
25.11.10 - Whitechapel Gallery, London, presented by Care in the Community Recordings
26.11.10 - NoNoLogic Festival, Barcelona

Watch "The Mourning Show" online

The Mourning Show from Bill Bankes-Jones on Vimeo.

Ergo Phizmiz's opera about radio, magic, death and UK radio DJ Chris Evans, commissioned by DePlayer, received it's UK premiere last August at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival. Now you too can join in the nihilistic fun and watch a DJ be destroyed.

On his regular early morning show, popular DJ Chris Evans is telephoned by three ladies.

They proceed to destroy his mind.

Convinced he is a bird, he exits via the fourth storey window.

From “maverick composer” Ergo Phizmiz, The Mourning Show is a demonic-memetic-suitcase-living-room-opera.

“An excellent opera, which brought plunderphonics to a new level” – Vital Weekly

Music, Words & Direction: Ergo Phizmiz
Design & Video: Ergo Phizmiz, Vulnavia Vanity, Martha Moopette & The Travelling Mongoose
Puppeteers: Vulnavia Vanity & Courtley Love
Featuring:
Erik Bumbledonk as Chris Evans
Ergo Phizmiz as the Plague Doctor
and
Martha Moopette, Lucinda Guy and Margita Zalite as the Callers

Slitscan Carnival

Carl Rosendahl (visual effects wizard from PDI) recently wrote a C++ program for Slitscan video. This video "Slitscan Carnival" uses Ergo Phizmiz's "Music for an Underground Circus" very effectively, creating a hypnotic piece of video-art.

Fulcanelli's Shoes - Extract from a work-in-progress

The "Into the Circus" section of the forthcoming performance-lecture-live-radio-opera-show from acclaimed composer and artist Ergo Phizmiz. This clip is a collage of elements from the history of cinema, including works by Eisenstein, Jean Cocteau, Powell & Pressburger, Oscar Fischinger, Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder, Hans Richter, Josef von Baky, and Jacques Tati. The music uses a melody from Stravinsky / Pergolesi's "Pulcinella" as the basis for an instrumental composition.

Fulcanelli's Shoes

Announcing the new Ergo Phizmiz project "Fulcanelli's Shoes", a performance - radio - opera - lecture - film - show about Fulcanelli, mistruth, alchemy, Jean Cocteau, Baron Munchausen, Kurt Schwitters, lies, dreams, and the moon. The show also features a feature-length video stream created by Martha Moopette, and radiophonic versions of Jack Zipes' translations of Kurt Schwitters' fairy-tales. Premiering 2011 at Soundart Radio, with further performances afterwards internationally.

"M: 1000 Year Mix" - 2010 Remaster

"M: 1000 Year Mix" was composed between 2005-2006. The only Ergo Phizmiz composition created entirely out of samples (excluding works like "Cinemacollages", which he doesn't consider his own compositions in the same way), the work is a hunt for dialogues between the music of diverse times and cultures, from 1000-2000 AD. Not a "mix" in the conventional understanding of the word, samples are treated as raw material to be spliced, reshaped and assimilated, creating new melodies and progressions from tiny fragments of this raw material, exploring the interior of how music works, and how music transforms across geography and the passing of time.



Part One is an exploration of Tonality and Atonality in music. Part Two is on the subject of Noise and Ambience. Part Three is a play with the developments of Technology and their relation to music. Part Four is about the usage of the human voice. Part five about Rhythm. Part six is the final amalgamation, or, if you like, the party at the end.

"M: 1000 Year Mix" is not a piece that professes to give any clear answers to any overriding questions about music. It is, like all of Ergo Phizmiz's works, "playing" music, or "playing with music", exploring with a wink and a cheeky, perhaps slightly lascivious grin the internal mechanisms of how music works.

Like the majority of Ergo Phizmiz's works, it was generally ignored by the mainstream media, though not for the want of press-releases and promos! However, as has become habitual the forward thinking magnificence that is the blogosphere came through, and amongst a myriad other bloggings across the web, the piece was described in this way:

"Imagine a playlist of music spanning a complete millenium, mashed-up and masterfully mixed together so that the listener slides backward and forward through time, almost like a non-linear evolutionary chart of the sonic experience. Those who like a bit of experimentation in their music may find this composition as genius as I did. Kerouac had his "On the Road," Michaelangelo had his "David," and Phizmiz has his "M: 1000." Every artist has his masterpiece." - Jots From The Flipside, 2006

This was supposed to be the beginning of a projected long line of sample-driven works from Ergo. What happened instead was this piece wore out his capacity to create entirely sample based music, and he had no option but to return to other forms of composition.

Remastered June 2010 by Ergo Phizmiz. Cover photograph taken by Simon Perry (ventnorblog.com), at the 2006 "M: 1000 Year Mix" exhibition.

Fairy Chewbacca

A music video for the new Ergo Phizmiz single "Fairy Chewbacca", featuring Courtley Love, filmed & edited by Martha Moopette.

"Fairy Chewbacca" is a new version of a song from the recently released Ergo Phizmiz album "Things to Do and Make", on Care in the Community Recordings, which can be bought from all good music retailers, and if they haven't got it, spank them!

"Magic", by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, from "The Keystone Cut Ups"

"Magic" is an excerpt from "The Keystone Cut Ups", by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz from 2010.

"The Keystone Cut Ups" is a live A/V performance that combines video-collage with an original musical score, created using sampling and live instrumentation, to explore the aesthetic, contextual and stylistic relationships between early silent-comedy and early avant-garde cinema.

Further info: peoplelikeus.org/​2010/​the_keystone_cut_ups.html

"Paul Klee, a Balloon, the Moon, Music and Me" receives Special Mention at the Prix Italia

Ergo Phizmiz's radiophonic work "Paul Klee, a Balloon, the Moon, Music and Me" has received the "Special Mention" in the category of music radio at the 2010 Prix Italia in Turin.

"An interesting and even daring experiment. The painter Paul Klee was deeply inspired by music and now Klee’s works are translated back into music and soundscapes. Movement and colour is suggested in an almost cinematic way."

The work, which told of an adventure through the paintings of Swiss painter Paul Klee in sound, was commissioned by the BBC for Radio 3's Between the Ears, and entered by the Beeb into the prize.

Prix Italia prizes news article (Italian).

Does this mean we can crack a bottle of wine?

Things to Make and Do - Ergo Phizmiz at Whitechapel Gallery

Ergo Phizmiz will be performing a special set from his new album "Things to Do and Make" at Whitechapel Gallery, London, on November 25th 2010, including a performance of songs created through an open invitation to local musicians.

The last time Ergo worked with musicians from the area local to a show to present his songs resulted in the album "Live in Warsaw", with Macio Moretti and Piotr Zabrodzki, which you can hear below:



This event is curated by Care in the Community Recordings.

More information and booking at Whitechapel Gallery.

Cinemacollages : Volume 1

A series of sound-collages on cinema and animation, comprising: "Sounds of Soviet Animation" Volumes 1 & 2 (mixes of sound-design and music from the Soyuzmultfilm Studios), "Betty Boop" (a mix of sounds from the legendary Fleischer animations), "Trnka / Trojan / Novak" (comprising of sound-effects from Jiri Trnka's collaborations with composers), "Laurel & Hardy Ubermash" (a mash-up of various hollerings, clangs, and music from the Hal Roach era L & H films), and "A Fantasia on Jan Svankmajer" (a whistlestop tour of stop-motion and Surrealism).

These collages were created 2006-2009

The pieces included here were originally created for Ergo Phizmiz's Phuj Phactory on WFMU, except "Trnka / Trojan / Novak", which is previously unreleased.

Within these collages you will hear music and sound-design from:

Zdenek Liska * Ideya Garanina * A. Babaev * N. Bogoslovski * Alfred Schnittke * A. Babaev * Yuri Norstein * B. Shapner * V. Dashkevich * Vadim Kurchevsky * Nina Shorina * Natalia Golovanova * Anatoly Petrov * M. Meyerovich * A. Khrjanovsky * V. Shumova * L. Atamanov * Ivan Ivanov-Vano * N. Serabryakov * E. Artemiev * Laurel & Hardy * Zoltan Kodaly * Charles Barlow & his Orchestra * Captain Wiggly-Hips * Edvard Grieg * Tchaikovsky * The Mike Sammes Male Voice Choir * Raymond Scott * The Avalon Boys * Auf Zum Schutzenfest * Ludwig Koch * Louis Armstrong * The Beau Hunks * Woody Allen * Groucho Marx * Max Fleischer * Sammy Timberg * Jan Svankmajer * Jack Hylton * BBC Radiophonic Workshop * Bernard Herrmann * The Marx Brothers * Esquivel * John Tavener * John Cage * Paul Bowles * The Brothers Quay * Leszek Jankowski * Bert Kaempfert * Luis Bunuel * Brian Easdale * Gyorgy Ligeti * Jiri Trnka * Vaclav Trojan * Jan Novak

Cinemacollages Volume 2 – Orson Welles / Karel Zeman's Magic Composites / Laurel & Hardy: Static / The Dream of Alfred Hitchcock is a work-in-progress ....

Ergo Phizmiz Live at Bridport Hat Festival - Videos

Below are some songs from Ergo Phizmiz's live show at Bridport Hat Festival, September 18th 2010..... keep an eye for some delightful hats passing by, some wonderful moustaches, and some angry looking fellows....

"Hats"



"Yellow Hat"



"In The Waking"



"Food and War"



"Fashionable Waltz"



"An Elephant On His Head"



"Mandrill"



"Fingerwings"

Ergo Phizmiz in Sync : 2 - Jared Brandle's films to "The Faust Cycle"

Film-maker Jared Brandle has been producing a series of fascinating films to elements from Ergo Phizmiz's 14 hour work "The Faust Cycle". We are delighted to present these beautiful pieces here.....

Ergo Phizmiz in Sync : 1 - Creative Commons usages of Phizmiz music

We thought it an opportune moment to post up the plethora of videos that have turned up lately using music by Ergo and collaborators .... some fascinating, hilarious and beautiful things here ...

Giant Winged Beasties from Natalia Castro on Vimeo.

Camera Test 2 from Thomas Galyon on Vimeo.

Bottomless pit - radio edit from petesa on Vimeo.

Chasing the Buffalo from KS12 on Vimeo.

Toasted from EganWorks Productions on Vimeo.

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz - "The Keystone Cut Ups" - World Premiere, September 15th

Opening Gala - The Keystone Cut Ups

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz
Location: The Maltings Theatre, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, UK
UK / 2010 / 40 min / Cert. Suggested 12

World Premiere

"The premiere performance of the new commission from artists People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz opens the Festival. The Keystone Cut Ups is a live performance that combines video-collage with an original musical score, created using sampling and live instrumentation, to explore the aesthetic, contextual and stylistic relationships between early silent-comedy and early avant-garde cinema.

Using the influence of slapstick comedy on the Surrealists as a starting point, the piece takes us on a madcap journey, combining the techniques and popular imagery of the two genres.

The Surrealists took to cinema easily, using it as a device to show their disdain for established artistic tradition. In their quest to liberate the imagination, they believed that the process of juxtaposing unrelated elements would create images of great emotional and poetic power. Thomas Pynchon wrote, “one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects”.

In early silent films the actors often came from the Vaudeville tradition. They used flamboyant body language and facial expressions, a style suited to melodramatic comedy, which was popular at the time for its escape value. The earliest films were influenced by the presentation methods of theatre and the stage sets and inclusion of orchestras and dancers were motifs of entertainment that stuck throughout cinema’s evolution.

The Keystone Cut Ups employs a surrealist approach, presenting images side by side on the screen at the same time. It includes the everyday objects, such as top hats or umbrellas that were utilized as props by both slapstick comedians and the Surrealists, as well as reflecting the concerns of the day like mass industrial automation, and the stories made popular through film at the time, which included clunky monsters and the fantasy of trips to the moon.

The work reflects simultaneously on the histories of these two distinct schools of cinema and how they inform one another, whilst producing a work whose structure and format is informed by both silent comedy and early experimental and avant garde cinema." - Iain Pate

Don’t miss this unique event, followed by a drinks reception in the Maltings’ Stage Door Bar.

http://www.berwickfilm-artsfest.com/events-and-films/8/10/opening-gala-the-keystone-cut-ups#

Four Golden Nuggets on the Seventh Day of September

A few nuggets of delight we ought to mention ....

Soundart Radio are broadcasting Ergo Phizmiz's piece "The Faust Cycle" in chunks of one hour, on Mondays at 11pm GMT for the next 14 weeks. So if you've never had the time to sit and listen to whole bloody big whack, you can now do the digestible version via this marvellous and always unpredictable station.

Tobias Fischer's in-depth interview with Ergo Phizmiz about "The Faust Cycle", previously available in a German language version in Beat Magazine, is now available online in an English version. You can read the article here. If you've never heard the piece, this article provides a good introduction to it, and is the most detailed look at the process of it's creation around.

Composer and artist Greta Pistaceci has published an interview with Ergo Phizmiz on Popshifter. Subtitled "A Play in Three Acts", the interview takes the form of a number of dialogues between Greta as Ergo & Ergo as Greta, The A-Band as Winnie the Pooh & Ergo as Arcimboldo, and Greta as Gertrude the Duck & Ergo as a Residents Spokesperson.

On 15th September, on WFMU, Do Or DIY with People Like Us will feature the premiere broadcast of Ergo Phizmiz's puppet-opera score for Buchinger's Boot Marionettes "The Snow Flea".

"Join Ergo Phizmiz in the studio for this week's DO or DIY featuring the premiere broadcast of the entirety of Ergo Phizmiz's score for "La Puce de Neige" ("The Snow Flea"), a mime puppet-opera for Buchinger's Boot Marionettes, which premiered in Marseille, November 2009. The show, created for children, tells the story of Kerugug, a snow flea who in the Arctic who is displaced to Antartica through a hole in the world, and his journey back - with an evil ice-cream in hot pursuit, sneaking snow fleas to use as anti-freeze in his produce. The piece combines field-recordings of Inuit folk songs with a memetic score that references Mussorgsky, Moondog, French folk songs, Augustus Pablo, Prokofiev, Strauss, and Raymond Scott."

The Critics are Dancing.....

The critics have been doing proverbial somersaults over the new Ergo Phizmiz album "Things to Do and Make", on Care in the Community Recordings.


"Phizmiz is a bona-fide songwriter juggling absurdist humour"- BBC

"Musical settings reveal an ear practised in making the magical brush shoulders with the mundane" - Drowned in Sound

"A genuinely intriguing album bursting with unusual sound effects, jaunty gypsy tunes, clackety electro, whistles, bells, typewriters and flashes of melancholy that all only hint at what this force of nature is capable of" - AU

"It’s very good indeed, but his idea of pop is a wholly individual universe of eccentricity, leftfield ideas and subversion, and all the better for it" - Americana-UK

"The first major and mainstream Ergo Phizmiz album may be a small independent release, but this album goes to show how major record companies have lost touch completely..ever so enjoyable...rather unique" - Pennyblack Music

"Bloody marvellous" - Clash Magazine

"Intelligent lyrics, fun melodies, frivolous and eclectic arrangement -- hell, he had me from the ukulele in the opening track" - Monsieur Delire

"A marvelous, manically-arranged set of odd pop songs" - Idletigers.wordpress.com

"Inventive pop, which is full of ideas" - Beyond the Noize


"Things to Do and Make" is available for order at Rough Trade, iTunes, Amazon, Zavvi, HMV, Play.com, and so on ......

Ergo Phizmiz Live at Rough Trade East, September 3rd 2010

Rough Trade East In-store - ERGO PHIZMIZ - Friday 3rd September, 7pm

Ergo Phizmiz will be playing a solo set of uberpop, primarily from the new album "Things to Do and Make", at Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, London. While you're there, why not pick up a copy of the album, released on Care in the Community Recordings. Oh yes.

Look forwards to seeing you there. Further info at Rough Trade.

The Mourning Show - The Talulah Tapes

A very pleasant surprise discovery. Ergo's 6 year old daughter filmed the vast majority of one of the rehearsals of "The Mourning Show" at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival (with the exception of the shadow-puppetry based Prologue). Filmed without sound, we've edited it to the recorded version of the opera, and here it is ....

"The Mourning Show" at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival - Video Extracts

A selection of extracts from the UK premiere of Ergo Phizmiz's opera about radio, magic, death & Chris Evans, "The Mourning Show".















And a little backstage treat, with Vulnavia Vanity lip-syncing to The Quiz, whilst Erik Bumbledonk & Ergo Phizmiz rehearse their moves...

"Late" - The new single by Ergo Phizmiz on Care in the Community Recordings

Ergo Phizmiz's new single "Late", a 'Lennonesque anti love-song', from the forthcoming album "Things to Do and Make", is available now for digital download, with a 7" released shortly through exclusive outlets.

The digital download, which also comes with B side "Late (Alternative Version)" is available through most of the major download stores, Amazon, iTunes, Zavvi, HMV, and so on, ad infinitum......

The single comes from the album "Things to Do and Make", which is released early August on LP, CD and Digital and is now available for pre-order from most stores.

Ergo Phizmiz on R. Stevie-Moore Tribute Album

A new compilation of cover songs dedicated to legendary songwriter R. Stevie-Moore features an interpretation by Ergo Phizmiz of "Part of the Problem".


The compilation can be downloaded for free at Sick Of The Radio.

From their site:

R. Stevie Moore and WWW.SICKOFTHERADIO.COM are proud to finally present volume #1 to the on-going project. We want to thank each and every over 100+ bands who have submitted R. Stevie Moore cover songs. Please stay posted, we intend to release several more volumes. For Details on how to submit songs for future volumes go HERE and also HERE.

VOLUME ONE - “Copy Me, Treat Me” (78:56)
RELEASE DATE: Monday July 12, 2010
1. I Like To Stay Home – Skitanja (4:01)
2. Answers – Rebecca and Lane Steinberg (3:29)
3. Copy Me - Künstler Treu’s Sleazy Disco Treatment (3:17)
4. Ryman Auditorium – Billy Ray Anderson (3:18)
5. I Go Into Your Mind - Talric G. Martin (3:24)
6. Dance Man – Preston Spurlock (2:57)
7. Don’t Let Me Go To The Dogs – Looo (1:25)
8. The Garbage State – The Mucus Mules (4:02)
9. It’s What You Do (It’s Not What You Are) – Dave Gregory (3:26)
10. Hobbies Galore – Dino Felipe (3:03)
11. Manufacturers – Mimi et les Pop People (3:57)
12. I Wish I Could Sing – Telethon Veginald Cheesburger (3:50)
13. Californian Rhythm – Gilbert Fawn (3:03)
14. Me Not Right - Purple Burt (1:14)
15. Records – Dominique Leone (1:43)
16. Oh Pat – b. janoff (4:04)
17. She Don’t Know What To Do With Herself – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti (2:52)
18. Part Of The Problem - Ergo Phizmiz (4:20)
19. Treat Me - pHoaming edison (2:49)
20. U R True – SPURM (2:48)
21. Debbie – Hard Sharks (2:04)
22. You Love Me, Do Something – Jes Maybe (5:49)
23. Combination Plate – Mitchell Friedman (4:27)
24. Dates – Jeff Eliassen (3:13)

Stay posted for the second exclusive volume, “New Wave Moons” which is set to release for free download on Monday July 19th.

Ergo Phizmiz & Margita Zalite - Live Improvisation Set at Uneasy Listening

We are utterly delighted to announce a rare improvisation set from Ergo Phizmiz in co-operation with the Latvian songbird and Renaissance lady Margita Zalite.

After meeting as part of Iuliana Varodi's Transymusic project in Romania, Margo and Ergo (who inexplicably have not yet played under the moniker of "Mergo") have collaborated on lots of unreleased material, including the children's broadcast pieces "Amitini" & "Neredzema Margo". Margo also appears as one of the callers in Ergo Phizmiz's opera "The Mourning Show". This is the first time since 2007 they have played music in a room together.

From Uneasy Listening:

This time, UNEASY LISTENING will be taking place at THE OTHERS,

6-8 Manor Road London N16 5SA. http://www.theothers.uk.com/

on tuesday the 10th of August 2010!!! (yes, even the date is exciting! No, really... that night there are going to be some amazing meteor showers!)

LIVE MUSIC PROVIDED BY:

-Ergo Phizmiz & Margita Zalite!!!!-

-Bolide Vs The A Band!!!-

-Beat Frequency!!!-


PLUS!!! LIVE PERFORMANCE BY THE AMAZING:

-Alexander Williams-


On the decks: Gertie the Duck & Marcelo Madrid

I Am The Music Man

One Sunday morning Martha Moopette said to Ergo Phizmiz "You really should cover I Am The Music Man". The deed was done, and by 3am the whole shebang, video and all (courtesy of Miss Moopette) were ready to molest the internet. Here are the results, with line-moustaches especially for the occassion ....

Ergo Phizmiz "New Band of the Day" on The Guardian website

The Guardian have made Ergo Phizmiz New Band of the Day....

"Is he a genius or a hoaxer with too much time on his hands? Possibly both"

"We can't decide whether he's the new Viv Stanshall, a young Eno, a British Zappa, or a replacement for Frank Sidebottom (RIP)"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/23/new-band-ergo-phizmiz

The Mourning Show at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival

We are jolly excited to announce the UK premiere of Ergo Phizmiz's opera about UK DJ Chris Evans, radio, magic and death ....

On his regular early morning show, popular DJ Chris Evans is telephoned by three ladies.

They proceed to destroy his mind.

Convinced he is a bird, he exits via the fourth storey window.

From “maverick composer” Ergo Phizmiz, The Mourning Show is a demonic-memetic-suitcase-living-room-opera.

More info and booking at Tete-a-Tete.

If you just can't wait, download the Pot-Pourri of instrumental music from the opera here.

Things to Do and Make - New album released 26th July 2010

From Care in the Community Recordings:

"Composer, multi-instrumentalist and broadcaster Ergo Phizmiz first came to prominence for his experimental electronica for which he is noted in the autobiography of the legendary Radio One DJ John Peel. Since then he has broadened his musical horizon to collaborate with The The, score a film for international art star Christian Marclay, undertake a growing number of BBC radio commissions and write operatic works. It's unsurprising then that he has attracted a 'serious' music audience (Michael Nyman being in attendance at Ergo's last London show), however, the predominantly acoustic Things to Do and Make is Ergo's first foray into what could be called 'Eccentric Pop'. Exuding the energy and theatricality of his live performance, that can see him flit from grand piano to drums via trumpet or self-made instrument and back, it marries his characteristic sense of the absurd, recalling Vivian Stanshall and the quintessential art school band ,The Bonzos, with an inventive and melodic folk-pop. The first single from the album is the Lennonesque anti-love song 'Late' configured for a one-man band: it is easy to picture Ergo with a bass drum strapped to his back, strumming a guitar with a tin whistle at the ready. As with all Ergo's output this album conveys his sense of pleasure and fun in making music but with this new found pop sensibility, it's an experience he should be sharing with a much larger audience from now on."

"The Emperor of music!" - Tom Ravenscroft, Channel 4 Radio

"One of the most inventive composers around ... a musical equivalent to Chris Morris" - BBC Radio 3, Mixing It

"Not so much a one-man band as a one man movement" - The Wire

"A berserk electronic and plunderphonic whizzkid" - Rough Trade

"A marvel of sonic experimentation ... Ergo is an inventive mind" - Comfortcomes.com

Tracklist:

Busby Berkeley
Fairy Chewbacca
Food & War
The Dapper Transvestite
Late
Mandrill
Hotel
Shanty
Parrot in the Pie
Dirty Shower Honk Stomp
Boris von Horace

V/A "The Faust Re.Cycled" out now on Headphonica

Earlier this year the exquisite Headphonica released “The Faust Cycle”, a 14+ hour dream fable of speech, songs, collage and sound-design by Ergo Phizmiz & Friends. From Headphonica:

"The diversity and oddness of sounds and harmony literally cried for being remixed. So did the snippets & samples Ergo provided for this remix project.

Now here they are ..."




Download "The Faust Re.Cycle" at Headphonica

Featuring Anton, Motokoishii, 1983, Lezet, Seiei Jack, Monos, Satanicpornocultshop, Goines ma non Troppo, Simone Genesi, Traqueurs De Combes, Tozz Rox, The Truth About Frank, Schizoid Cosmos, Broken Hours, Panda Paranoico, Vladislav Nogin, Dinty Slop, Winterberg, The Mueslimen, Hochgobernitz, and Gurdonark for the remixes, and once again marvellous artwork from Moritz Grunke

Music For The Jilted Generation - New covers album on UpItUp

We are delighted to announce the release of "Music For The Jilted Generation", a cover of the entirety of The Prodigy's dancefloor filling 90s classic on the frankly marvellous UpItUp Records.

The album comes complete with the full set of Ergo's covers albums from 2003-2010 "Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra plays Aphex Twin", "White Light White Heat", "Arff & Beef", "Now That's What We Pump At The Party" and "Dadaphone". And it's all (guess) FREEEEE.

From UpItUp Records:

"Ladies and gentlemen,

we are beyond proud to present thou our latest musical acquisition, acollection of genuine recordings by a well respected figure of the netlabel scenes; composer, songwriter, performer, collagist, DJ, installation artist, netaudio legend, author, narrator, radio host and what not – Mister Ergo Phizmiz! [Applause, standing ovation]

The man himself called upon us to treasure his corpus of divine musical reinterpretations inside our flamboyant catalogue, enabling future generations to sup on herein before mentioned. The collection contains the 2003 album "Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra Plays Aphex Twin", the 2004 cover version of The Velvet Underground's "White Light White Heat", the 2005 reinterpretations of R'N'B hits, called "Arff & Beef", and the 2009 compilations "Now That's What We Pump at the Party" and "Dadaphone".

As if the honour for our part wasn't complete, Phizmiz passed us his acoustic solo remake of Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy which he has recorded for us in solely one day, to be especially released here on upitup.

My goodness, go ahead and download the whole fucking thing here!!!

One feels like shit next to Ergo who has released works such as an amazing 15 hour-long album piece and who has broadcast more than total 200 hourson radio stations like WFMU and Resonance FM. We are oberthrilled to be home to this epic collection of free music by him and promise to never release anything ever again after this. :) "

Also you can now download for free Ergo Phizmiz's 2007 retrospective "Nose Points In Different Directions" at the excellent new netlabel portal of Womb Records. Ergo will also shortly be producing a new release for Womb, details to follow soon.......