Wednesday 13 June 2018

FUCK MEN ;)


PRESS RELEASE
in the style of a particular type
of music journalist.
You know who you are.

FUCK MEN ;) , the new album from under-ground music leg-end Ergo Phizmiz (PLC), is a blisteringly brilliant barnacled behemoth of a record, a grand Panjandrum of juddering, stamping, tear-yourself-apart-and-reconstitute-yourself-like-the-corned-beef-you-are hardcore axe wielding cockpop. (Sometimes writing hurts me). Beats that grind and shimmer betwixt antiquarian synthesis devices and guitars like armies of barking, rabid hounds. Yet in this fractal chaos there is, like in every music journalist, a bleeding core of aching, almost catatonic, tenderness, where plaintive, forbidding violins tease the raw, unfiltered feeling from the robotic automatische klang-krieg that churns relentless from the belly of this motorik world. (Have I mentioned Hegel yet? Or do you already gather that I have a couple of introduction to philosophy books somewhere?) There is fear, bags of malice, squalling riotous symphonies of anxiety where demonic industrial incel cowboys screech and yodel in the precisely quantized aether. But there is, yet, a glimmering of hope – we record collecting humans need not descend into despair, for where the brave fear to tread, this oozing broth of techno rock'n'roll has the power to cleanse our acrid souls. (We forgot to use the word “visceral”, does that matter? What time is the Top Gear repeat on?) 


 



Tuesday 19 December 2017

REBAPTISM AND NIBIRU!

AFTER A BAPTISM IN THE ALDEBURGH SEA BY MINISTER FREDERIC WAKE-WALKER, THE SUPERMEGAUBERTASTICLE ARTIST ERGO PHIZMIZ (PLC) IS BACK, AND THIS, MOTHERFUCKERS, IS "NIBIRU!"


ERGO PHIZMIZ (PLC)

presents a musical version of

NIBIRU!



What the world undoubtedly needs in these troubled times is a massive, epic concept album about the apocalypse, conspiracy theories, and [social]networking. This is that album.


Given that it has been proposed Nibiru is going to smash and obliterate the earth in mid December 2017, this album has only a few days to be listened to. You'd better dig in.
 





Smash-ups of spoken-word, sound-collage, electronic music, live instruments, and the best of Youtube. This is your party as Rome burns. Wrap up warm.



NIBIRU! is a production of the end-of-the-world renowned operatic abomination Ergo Phizmiz (Public Limited Company).






HOW TO MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO FOR A CONCEPT ALBUM AT THE END OF THE WORLD



TAKE A CADBURY'S FLAKE ADVERT, SLOW IT DOWN TO THE LENGTH OF THE TRACK



TAKE A YOUTUBE VIDEO OF A SOLAR ECLIPSE, WHICH TURNS OUT, AS IT HAPPENS, TO HAVE THE WORDS “RIGHT WING” SUDDENLY AND ABRUPTLY SPATTERED ONTO THE SCREEN



REALISE THAT THE UNIVERSE IS
IN THE FINAL THROES OF EARTH
DOING YOU FAVOURS 
AND MAKING REALLY UNPLEASANT SATIRE 
WITHOUT YOU REALLY MEANING TO
SLOW THIS DOWN TOO



ADD SOME DODGY CHROMA KEY



PLACE THE WATERMARK OF 
SOME CORPORATION OR OTHER 
ONTO THE SCREEN
IN THIS CASE THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION



ADD 
[ NIBIRU! ]
WATERMARK

Written, Composed, Performed and Produced by Dominic Robertson



Violin improvisations by Lottie [Depresstival] Bowater



Synthesisers performed by Lottie [Depresstival] Bowater, Lukas Simonis, Dominic Robertson (one night at Worm, Rotterdam, when I lost my umbrella) *


Dedicated to Jon Panther, for sending me on the concept album trail, and Richard Kennedy, for the arctic vacations.


* Between writing this text this afternoon and returning tonight to release the album, I was given a new umbrella. Nibiru is definitely coming.  What will we do? If the earth is flat, as some seem to be suggesting, we might be alright - that is, Nibiru might just roll along it like a marble. It could even just skim the bottom. And we all know how nice skimming the bottom is. Wish Nibiru the best of luck. And a happy Eczemas to all the politicians, to the rise of everyday Fascism, the continuing infringements of human rights and civil liberties, and the general, mainstream, wilful regression into idiocy that is happening seemingly everywhere. Happy fucking what? Tell the Ravens to leave the Tower of London as soon as possible and find another planet. I know Beefeaters look nice and all that but everything has its day. Goodbye, have a nice eternity.

Sunday 4 December 2016

COMPOSTER OF MUSIC

If you'd like to know what I'm doing since Ergo Phizmiz left this mortal coil, you could do worse than checking COMPOSTER OF MUSIC.

Saturday 17 October 2015

The Death of Ergo Phizmiz

Though I have wept and fasted, fasted and wept,
I grow old I grow old, I will wear the bottom of my trousers rolled,
and so on...



After 15 years and a completely life changing and very difficult year, it has become essential to definitively kill off Ergo Phizmiz, and begin my chequered career from scratch.

Thankyou for joining me for the ride. And fret ye not, there are hundreds of hours of music online, and hundreds more still unreleased. At some point we'll empty out the vaults in a massive splat of audio and video.

This blog will remain online as an archive.

A re-baptism / un-baptism took place at the recent performances of "Billiards" with Mahogany Opera Group. I will be back in further incarnations. You just wait and see what happens next.

Until then.....


Wednesday 9 September 2015

BILLIARDS - A Collage Opera - at King's College

A collage opera
Produced by Mahogany Opera Group in association with Sound and Music
Alone in his Manhattan research laboratory, Raymond Scott, the father of electronic music, is developing a machine to generate random musical patterns. When one of his devices accidentally tears a hole in the universe, it begins a fantastical space-music-history-sci-fi-gameshow encounter that brings him face to face with classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.








Inspired by Mozart’s love of billiards and Scott’s experiments in electronic sound, follow these extraordinary characters as they debate random chance and creating music, with some help from film-pioneer Georges Méliès, Lewis Carroll’s logic games, and composers John Cage and JS Bach.


Ergo Phizmiz’s high-octane opera-essay combines, video animation, puppetry, live singing, recorded tracks and a remix of classical and electronic music to create an exhilarating sensory event blurring the boundaries between opera and performance art. 

Billiards is a bizarre and feisty challenge to traditional preconceptions of opera.
 
“For first you write a sentence, And then you chop it small; Then mix the bits and sort them out Just as they chance to fall: The order of the phrases makes No difference at all.”
 - Lewis Carroll / Ergo Phizmiz Billiards

Images: Ergo Phizmiz, Impact

TICKETS FOR THIS EVENT ARE FREE BUT BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL

14 October 2015, 6.30pm - King's College London - work in progress performance Presented as part of King's College London Arts & Humanities Festival
14 October 2015, 8.30pm - King's College London - work in progress performance Presented as part of King's College London Arts & Humanities Festival

Saturday 29 August 2015

VOGEL EUROPA at Toi Toi Opera Festival, London


Ergo Phizmiz presents the UK premiere of his experimental opera "Vogel Europa" at the Toi Toi Opera Club Night, London, October 28th 2015, presented by the Helios Collective.

"Vogel Europa" is an opera using song, found-sound, mixed language, and rhythmic spoken word, taking cues from the intoned voice operas of Robert Ashley and the simultaneous sound-poetry exhibits of the Dadaists. The opera also makes direct reference to the work of Polish writer Bruno Schulz, mixed with autobiographical references and stories, fantasies, and multilingual bird-name directories from old records. Finally, we will meet the last bird in the universe and discover what his swansong is.

 

Saturday 15 August 2015

GALA at Grimeborn

Tomorrow, for one night only, at Arcola's Grimeborn Festival, a new production of "Gala", Ergo Phizmiz's opera on the romance of Gala Dali and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Written, Composed and Directed by Ergo Phizmiz

Starring Thea Martin, Adam Dindorf, Natalie Morgan and Teddy Court
with Jenny Moore, Serafina Steer, Sarah Anderson, Simon Clark, and Tom Woolner

Designed and Produced by Luis Carvajal

Presented by I-DA projects

Also starring Cumberbatch's steam
and
a
very
cute
rabbit

Tickets available rrrright here....

Some photos of rehearsals to whet that hungry palate of yours....