The Faust Cycle

"The Faust Cycle is the most ambitious music project conceived in the 21st century and certainly the only one able to challenge your listening habits. That it is available for free and doesn’t fit on a regular disc speaks volumes as to the state of music today." - Continuo

The Faust Cycle
or, The House of Dr Faustus
-Released 1st January 2010 on Headphonica -


Written, Composed, Performed & Produced by
Ergo Phizmiz

Project consultants
James Nye, Martha Moopette, The Travelling Mongoose

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.


Download the entire 15 hours, complete with magnificent artwork from Moritz Grunke and friends, free, from the marvellous Headphonica.


The project is supported by Arts Council England, Soundart Radio, Vaguely Marsupial Productions, VentnorBlog, Quay Arts

Stream or download "Music from the House of Dr Faustus"