"MUSIC FOR PLEASURE" - New album on digital download now

 

Ergo Phizmiz / "MUSIC FOR PLEASURE"

 

A 17 track behemoth of Ergo Phizmiz's singular take on guitar based rock'n'roll & pop music. Twisty nightmares, bakery mythologies, monsters, wordplay, camels, the album boasts 17 slices of uber-catchy, noisy reverie, including cover versions of rock'n'roll classics "The Bird's The Word", "I Try to Find" and "Little Things".

 

 

 

"The Sap" is a subterranean homesick nonsense vomit, "The Luncheon Bell" a full-stomach of noise-tea, "Boomgie" is a stomp on a scale to compete with any of history's stompers, "Funny Hydromatic" is a non-driver's version of car rock, and we defy you not to be singing "The Camel is the Mammal" into next year.

 

 

Every track is imbued with the trademark combination of sly humour and attention to the craftsmanship of songwriting, and is a must-add to anyone's collection of music by Ergo Phizmiz.

 

Recorded 2009 - 2010 at the Mechanischemmusikkabinett, Devon.

 

Written, Composed, Performed & Produced by Ergo Phizmiz

Additional bass, guitar, vocals by The Travelling Mongoose.

 

This album is available exclusively on Bandcamp. If you have enjoyed Ergo Phizmiz's free music, please chip in and buy this, and do spread the word.

The Mourning Show - Rehearsal Photos

From the rehearsals of the new opera about the death of Chris Evans, which previewed last night in Nijmegen....

The Mourning Show

"THE MOURNING SHOW" by ERGO PHIZMIZ PREMIERE IMMINENT!

Download an mp3 of "STASIMON 2"

From DePlayer:

"For this COM.POST Ergo Phizmiz made a suitcase opera. easy to transport but impressive in it's refined content and output.

An evening of adventures homegrown operesqette business about about the English talk radio DJ Chris Evans doing a phone-in show. Somehow by the end he'll be dead.

This year the term 'Memetism' is a guideline to create new performative soundpieces leaning forward or bending over to opera, ritualistic slaughter, group autistics, chamber meetings amongst others.

The research element for this production will come through the combination of various historical operatic compositional models into a mad amalgamation of self-reflective music.

The evening will be served with a program around this masterpiece, existing of the following bits:
-A collage film about opera, demonology, and the ideas / processes of The Mourning Show
-A series of drawings and collages on opera
-A special party mix of opera-pop
-A set of foundsound by The Travelling Mongoose

THE MOURNING SHOW will have its try-out at Extrapool, Nijmegen at thursday 6 may.

On Sunday 10 may it will play in Les Atelier Claus, Bruxelles.

Later this year it will do another tour in Holland, France, Germany and Poland


COM.POST is financially supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, the City of Rotterdam Department of Culture, Nederlands Fonds voor Podiumkunsten+,
the Pact op Zuid, the Stichting ter bevordering van Volkskracht and Vestia."

The Mourning Show - Flyer by Redbol for the Extrapool Show, May 6th

We are jolly delighted by artist Redbol's flyer for the Extrapool performance of Ergo's forthcoming "living room opera" The Mourning Show.

The Mourning Show - May 2010

De Player presents
"The Mourning Show"
An Opera about Death, Magic & Radio

Written & Composed by Ergo Phizmiz

Starring Erik Bumbledonk as Chris Evans

With the voices of Lucinda Guy, Martha Moopette & Margita Zalite

Project Consultant The Travelling Mongoose

Masks by Vulnavia Vanity

*

The first performances of The Mourning Show
will take place at:

May 6th 2010 - Extrapool, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

May 8th 2010 - DePlayer, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

May 9th 2010 - Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels, Belgium

*

Download the hi-res poster

Download an mp3 preview of a Pot-Pourri of music from "The Mourning Show"

*

We will be delighted to see you there .....

The Mourning Show

On his regular morning radio show, BBC DJ Chris Evans is called by three increasingly strange women. Something transpires. Something dark. But you'll have to wait and see.

A new opera by Ergo Phizmiz.

Starring Erik Bumbledonk, and featuring the disembodied voices of Margita Zalite, Lucinda Guy, and Martha Moopette. With The Travelling Mongoose as the Plague Doctor.

Premiering at De Player, Rotterdam, who also commissioned the opera, on May 8, 2010, to be followed by small-scale European and UK tours. Tour dates to be announced soon.

- If you are a promoter or organiser interested in The Mourning Show playing in your theatre, club, or wherever else, drop us a line and a full information pack will be forwarded -

For a sneak preview, you could do worse than download the Overture.

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

Ergo Phizmiz Rock'N'Roll Machine : Dadaphone - Out Now on the Free Music Archive

Continuing in the long line of acclaimed albums of covers and reinventions of pop music by Ergo Phizmiz comes "Dadaphone", in the new incarnation of the Rock'N'Roll Machine.






In 2003 Ergo very cruelly upset the Aphex Twin fan community with his reinventions of the music of Richard D. James for acoustic and toy instruments, incidentally a record that the James in question was rather fond of.

2004 saw the release of Ergo's cover of the entirety of the Velvet Underground's "White Light / White Heat" album, into a semi-mechanical behemoth of toys, tinny synths and banjoes, to both whistles and boos across the world.

By 2005 and the album "Arff and Beef" he had turned his attention to R & B classics of the present day, wherein Beyonce, Timberlake, Missy, et al, were given the Phizmiz treatment.

After a hiatus from cover versions Ergo returned with his band The Midnight Florists in tow for the whacked-out opus "Now That's What We Pump at the Party", in which dancefloor fillers of the 90s and noughties were transformed into multilayered slabs of lo-fi rhythmic goodness gracious me.

And now ...... the Ergo Phizmiz Rock'N'Roll Machine brings you "Dadaphone", a huge and savage record of booms and bangs, in which Ergo deals with the widest range of covers yet, from the intense merging of three or four different cover versions in album opener "The Bomb", to the slow and very loud rock'n'roll waltz version of the Pet Shop Boys "It's a Sin", to the intensive ludicrous funkpunk workout of "Slap My Bass Up" (a simultaneous cover of two different songs by The Prodigy, with some of the Bucketheads and Europe's "Final Countdown" thrown in). The record is created in collaboration with Ergo's compadre The Travelling Mongoose, who grounds the record into a solid earthy lump of pop yum.

This is the most diverse and considered of all the Ergo Phizmiz covers projects so far, as much a party record as an aesthetic statement. We're quite sure that, as is par for the course with this kind of project now, some people will certainly find something to be wildly offended about and feel inclined to post aggressive messages on the internet about just what a terrible record it is and how talentless and mindless Ergo is.

However for those of you with smiles in your hearts, switch on, turn it up, put on your disco lights, and take a trip through the past 30 years or so of pop music with Ergo Phizmiz as your host.

Direct link to the record http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ergo_Phizmiz_RockNRoll_Machine/Dadaphone/

Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose DJ at the Design Museum

The Design Museum, London, features this coming Friday night a Silent Disco collaborative DJ set from Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose, for Care in the Community Recordings, as part of Design Overtime Festival.

The exclusive set will mix the nature and found-sound recordings of The Travelling Mongoose, with instrumental, experimental and furniture music by Ergo Phizmiz created over the past ten years including many new and unreleased pieces, a spot of 78-RPM recordings, and junkshop vinyl.

DESIGN OVERTIME
FESTIVAL
FRIDAY 25 September
6 - 10pm last admission 9.15pm

A last chance to see Super Contemporary at a spectacular late opening, not only is it the London Design Festival but it’s our 20th Birthday too! See the exhibitions and take part in debates and workshops set to a blend of music and entertainment.

Enter the Birthday Cake Bakeoff and make us a cake inspired by iconic design. The best cakes will be put on display for one night only to help us celebrate our twentieth birthday. Email overtime@designmuseum.org or download the Bakeoff brief for details of how to enter and delight in the culinary climax at the Design Overtime. Brace yourselves for our Silent Disco to provide you with a personal soundtrack by which to boogie whilst you draw in the Super Contemporary exhibition.

Tickets £5 in advance, includes entry to all current exhibitions

Go to Design Museum website.

Now That's What We Pump At The Press Release...

We are delighted to announce the online-only, free release of a new album of covers of 1990s chartbusting, dancefloor filling smash hits, arranged for acoustic, electronic, homemade, and toy instruments, by Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists.

"Now That's What We Pump At The Party"

Following in the footsteps of the reviled, acclaimed, maimed and shamed Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra project (also available free), which covered the music of Aphex Twin, the entirety of the second Velvet Underground album, and a selection of 90s & noughties R & B classics for acoustic and toy instrument. This recording, however, moves on from the sound of the Orchestra project, moving into a more band-orientated sound, sounding something similar to strange manic jazz made by psychotic octogenarians on whatever instruments they could find.

For anyone with fond or hate-filled memories of such luminaries as C & C Music Factory,Dee Lite, Lou Bega, Culture Beat, or Snap, this album is for you. Hear Ergo & the Florists tear their way through "Rhythm is Dancer" like a party of wild banshees armed with ukuleles and box drums, or crawling across the bar-room Harmonium on an afterparty "Mambo No 5". Help us call "Mr Vain", complete with toy piano and the Monkton-o-phone, or simply put on your dancing shoes and begrudgingly admit that "Groove is in the Heart", which, hearts in the groove, the Midnight Florists plough through, group falsetti circling like vultures atop the corpse of that 'indestructable medium', the CD.

This album is the first release by the new musical unit The Midnight Florists. The group, on this release, is comprised of Ergo Phizmiz, The Travelling Mongoose, Monkton Wylde and Vulnavia Vanity, all of whom play all manner of instruments and contribute vocals to the release. Special mention should go to The Travelling Mongoose's newfound skills in very, very high falsetto vocals, at which he is an undisputed master.

Download, dance, and tell all your friends .....

Here be the link, on the marvellous WFMU Free Music Archive .....

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ergo_Phizmiz/Now_Thats_What_We_Pump_At_The_Party/

Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists "Now That's What We Pump At The Party" - New album imminent ....

We are delighted to announce the imminent online release of a new album of cover versions, from the 1990s, by Ergo Phizmiz and The Midnight Florists.

This album is the screaming successor to the Ergo Phizmiz & his Orchestra project, in which Ergo recreated the music of Aphex Twin, the Velvet Underground, and various nineties and noughties R & B classics. And, of course, the record must be free!

(Although a 10" one day would be nice ...)

The tracklist is:

"Groove Is In The Heart"
"Mr Vain"
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)"
"Gonna Make You Sweat"
"Mambo No 5"
"Rhythm Is A Dancer"

The album is arranged & performed by Ergo Phizmiz, The Travelling Mongoose, Monkton Wylde & Vulnavia Vanity. The elegant Mambo Rocher was away on some shady business trip, but may if time is on our side make an appearance on Blue (Da Ba Dee) along with a spatial gust performance from the good lady Martha of Moopette. Produced by Ergo, with thanks to the Co-Op bins and Vulnavia's astounding business acumen. Recorded at the Mechanischemusikabbinett, this last week but mainly the other day, 2009.

During the sessions Monkton's balls were cupped. But by whom?

And it'll be on this blog very soon..... next day or so is the theory..... tell all your friends and put on your dancing shoes.....

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.

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

New, free EP "Earballet - Don Quixote" out now...

Hot of the presses, a new five-track EP of instrumental music by Ergo Phizmiz.

"Earballet - Don Quixote" takes five scenes from Cervantes' novel as the basis of compositions, written for acoustic, electric, and homemade instruments, with voices and field-recordings.

It's an indicator of Ergo's more recent sound, sort of instrumental tapestries.

You can download this EP free at the WFMU Free Music Archive.

Talulah & The Baron : Radio for Children

We are delighted to present the pilot episode "Talulah and the Baron", a new Ergo Phizmiz radio piece from a project-in-progress in children's radio.

Talulah and the Baron is a fantasy in sound-design, composition, song, and slapstick.

Voices are by Talulah Lotus & Autumn Poppy, my lovely daughters.

Sound-Design by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose

Text, Narration, Composition, Production by Ergo Phizmiz

You can download phorphree at WFMU Free Music Archive.

Filmed at the Mechanischemusikkabinett : Down By The Stream

The first in a bunch, or a daker's bozen, of new short films, shot at Ergo's workshop the Mechanischemusikkabinett.



The first is a jaunty peek at the world of "Down By The Stream", Ergo's occasional shows with The Travelling Mongoose, which take place on Ergo's Soundart Radio show.

Down By The Stream #2 Playlist & Download

If you tuned into Soundart Radio this afternoon at 2pm UK time, you will have heard some new toying about with radio by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose, in the shape of the second episode of their irregular "Down By The Stream" shows.

In this show, interspersed with found-sounds, foley, field-recordings, spoken-word, and various other ways of playing about with their favourite medium, we heard (roughly and in no particular order):

Frankie Valli "Grease"
Grange Hill Cast "Just Say No"
Siegfried Wendel "Oldtime Music"
BBC "50 Years of the BBC"
Papadopoulous, Kowald & Floridis "Pyrichia"
Aaron Islamb "Boss Yourself"
The Music of Portsmouth
Indian Summer 12"
Cozy Powell 7"
Buxtehude Fugue
Benjamin Britten "Dances From Gloriana"
Stravinsky "The Firebird (Suite)"
Lord Kitchener "Dr Kitch"
Mr Bach Goes to Town
Disney "Pinocchio"
HMV Vehicle Sound Effects
David Tomlinson "The Life I Lead"
All Star Jazz Festival
Darius Milhaud "Cantate de la Paix"
Kathleen Ferrier 10"
Indo-Jazz Suite
Saint-Saens "Carnival of the Animals"
How To Give Yourself a Stereo Checkout
Disney French 101 Dalmatians 7"

Interview with Chinky Bolin

Mix by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose

Field-Recordings by The Travelling Mongoose

Produced by Ergo Phizmiz


You can download this show in high-quality mp3 below:

Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose "Down By The Stream #2"

And while you're at it, why not grab the first episode too:

Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose "Down By The Stream #1"


"Down By The Stream", the latest project of Ergo's long running collaboration with the Mongoose, takes place on an irregular basis, as part of Ergo Phizmiz's experimental weekly show on Soundart Radio, Dartington, UK.

Down By The Stream #2 on Soundart Radio

Ergo Phizmiz and compadre The Travelling Mongoose put on their fishing hats and go for another amiable chat and extended sit Down By The Stream, on Soundart Radio this Thursday 30/04/09, 2pm UK time.

This is the second in an occasional series, in which Ergo & the Mongoose fuse old vinyl, original field-recordings & found-sound, collage-composition, spoken-word, and foley.

The show will be made available as an mp3 download from this blog after the broadcast. Go to Soundart Radio.

For the first of the Down By The Stream shows in mp3, go here.

And for previous experimental mix radio madness with Ergo & the Mongoose you could do worse than listen to the 2007 podcasts of Time Travel Musical Bazaar on WFMU.

Ergo Phizmiz on Soundart Radio & "Down By The Stream"

Ergo Phizmiz recently started weekly shows on Dartington, UK, radio station Soundart Radio, which run weekly on Thursdays at 2-3 UK time.

The shows are of no fixed format, keeping the shows open for fun and experimentation, and every third week of the month will feature "Down By The Stream", a new collaborative turntable and field-recording fiesta with The Travelling Mongoose, who previously worked with Ergo on the Uutske Buutske project, and the WFMU Time Travel Musical Bazaar podcasts.

"Down By The Stream" will also be available as mp3s from this blog, on the third Thursday of each month, so here, my dears, is the first one.

Down By The Stream, by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose, Show 1

Turntables by Ergo Phizmiz & The Travelling Mongoose
Field-Recordings by The Travelling Mongoose
Featuring two spoken-word pieces by Jack Phoenix
Produced by Ergo Phizmiz

Occasionally other shows from the Soundart Radio series will be available as mp3, but for legal reasons the straightforward track-mix shows will not be. So in that case you'll have to tune in to future episodes, which you can stream from Soundart Radio.