Thursday 28 January 2010

The Faust Cycle, broadcast on Radio Sitka, Poland

Radio.Sitka are broadcasting "The Faust Cycle" in it's entirety across one day, on Friday 29th January, with a full repeat the next day.

From 10am CET, until around 1am. More information (Polish language) here.

Listen at Radio.Sitka

The Faust Cycle over 14 days at Cerebralrift.org

Cerebralrift.org are breaking up Ergo Phizmiz's 14 hour sound piece "The Faust Cycle" across 14 days, and reviewing it as it goes along. Today is day three.

Keep up to date at Cerebralrift.

Sunday 17 January 2010

Two Songs from The Faust Cycle


Two songs from the 14 hour audio adventure The Faust Cycle, by Ergo Phizmiz.



The first is an argument between a pantomime God & Devil, accompanied by a chorus of angels & demons, that takes place inside a kinetoscope.

The second is what happens when a sexually aroused monkey is placed backstage in an opera house.

The Faust Cycle is available as a Creative Commons, free audio release on Headphonica.

Artwork for this single by Rob Henderson.

"The Faust Cycle", more reviews

Ergo Phizmiz's 14 hour audio work "The Faust Cycle", released as free, Creative Commons audio on Headphonica, is continuing to pop up across the wonder of the blogosphere.

From Journey Through a Burning Brain:
"Expect some kind of deeply disturbing, elevating and jolly sound-meditation.. for hours and hours and hours...This thing is a mix of narrated passages which penetrate your mind in a poetry-like, dreamy, collage, trip -like fashion. An intertextual explosion. Interwoven with longer and shorter and longer pieces of, well to keep it simple, music...expect everything."

From Ayeball:
"... this is clearly the work of a singular visionary...A real iPod-strainer at around 2GB in size, but it more than justifies the space and will keep you entertained for hours (at least fifteen of ‘em). As I type, I’m halfway through the second of five chunks, and am utterly enraptured."

Thankyerkindly ...

Friday 15 January 2010

"The Faust Cycle" - Full broadcast on n0theen Internet Radio


Starting on January 17th and on consecutive Sundays, n0theen radio will be broadcasting the entirety of Ergo Phizmiz's 14 hour "The Faust Cycle" (released Jan 1st on Headphonica), at the following times ....

17.01.2010 18:00 – 21:00 CET
(GMT/UTC +1) – chunk 1
24.01.2010 18:00 – 21:00 CET (GMT/UTC +1) – chunk 2
31.01.2010 18:00 – 21:00 CET (GMT/UTC +1) – chunk 3
07.02.2010 18:00 – 21:00 CET (GMT/UTC +1) – chunk 4
14.02.2010 18:00 – 21:00 CET (GMT/UTC +1) – chunk 5

Tune in at notheen.com

"n0theen is an non-profit, commercial free internet radio station (24/7 audio stream) which webcasts Copyleft, Public Domain and Creative Commons music only."

Thursday 7 January 2010

Why download "The Faust Cycle"? 1 - 46

From the merciless addiction that is Twitter, 46 reasons to download Ergo Phizmiz's big, big sound-art piece "The Faust Cycle", which you can grab, freely from Headphonica.



1) It features a string quartet riding bicycles & playing Janacek.
2) We pay a visit to Trimalchio's next dinner party.
3) Marcel Duchamp learns to rap.
4) Latvian songbird Margita Zalite sings Peggy Lee and makes it her own.
5) To hear the sound of a Moses basket made of gurgling babies in a sewer.
6) A walking gramophone.

7) The regular appearance of an 1832 Debain Harmonium.

8) A ukulele song about love and poo.

9) It took three years and nearly made my brain collapse.

10) It can be listened to closely, or allowed to linger in the background.
11) To hear the largest and most ornate bowel movement in history.

12) To hear Pete Um wax lyrical about opera and sing about cassowaries.

13) Where else would you hear a giant exploding pig?

14) To hear a singing child psychiatrist.

15) To hear a mambo duet between God & the Devil.

16) For Helen of Troy's mime-only version of The Iliad.

17) For Igor Stravinsky's stand-up comedy show.

18) If you've nothing better to do, you can nearly pass a whole day.

19) For Bela Emerson's gorgeous cello & electronics improvisations.

20) To hear Joseph Cornell speaking entirely through sound-collage.

21) In order to find out what happens when a train comes to a dinner party.

22) Find out what happens with an aroused monkey backstage in an opera house

23) It has no cryptic references to the number 23.

24) Meet Mr Sausage.

25) It's chock full of brand new pop songs locked within it's fabric.

26) To hear Angela Valid's electroacoustic hell kebabs.

27) What does a piano promenading through a sewer sound like?

28) To hear a mechanical doll careering out of control at 80 mph.

29) For a myriad marble runs.

30) For a TR606 improvising with a rainstorm.

31) To hear James Nye's variations of Erik Satie "An Evening in Hell".

32) Hear the Four Tops covered by Noel Coward and a Country & Western band.

33) Peer into the Devil's pantomime kinetoscopes.

34) It's not created by Simon Cowell. Or is it?

35) To hear me flushing myself down the toilet.

36) Martha Moopette monologues off Cole Porter lyrics.
37) It has no headlice in it.
38) It's an iPod killer!

39) Hear the world gently, gently crack

40) For a malevolent talking Albatross, of course.

41) For insect recordings by Irene Moon, the singing entomologist.

42) Discover how to be a ventriloquist with no talent for doing so.

43) Hear Erich Von Stroheim over and over and over and over and over again.

44) To put Ergo Phizmiz at rest and give his poor, twittering fingers a break. (Contributed by the great Navia of Vanity)

45) Because Vulnavia Vanity says so.

46) For the 1940s style balloon dance of Emperor Rudolf II of Prague.

Monday 4 January 2010

Great review of The Faust Cycle


"Certainly the most astonishing piece of netaudio I have ever come across ... words like 'epic' do not even begin to describe the mind-boggling expansiveness of this work."

Read the full review at the positively delightful Hiddenplacemusic.

Friday 1 January 2010

The Faust Cycle - Download from Headphonica


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