Ergo Phizmiz Live at the Shacklewell Arms, with Pete Um & Mucky Sailor

We are delighted to announce a most delicious triple bill. The world's foremost musical-miniaturist-poet-and-monger-of-gorgeous-crunks-and-thuds Pete Um, the delicious-synth-and-drum-tastic-pop-noise-odyssey-merchants Mucky Sailor, and lock-up-your-daughters-and-sons-and-block-your-noses Ergo Phizmiz.

Presented by Care in the Community Recordings, on December 19th at the Shacklewell Arms, London.

Roll up! Roll up!

Get yer tickets HERE.

Press Release from Care in the Community Recordings:

"Care in the Community recordings present three music conceptualists

Mucky Sailor: Relentless, distorted and deranged prog-rhythm-rock duo of drums and large keyboard array that includes a bespoke ships wheel oscillator. Phenomenological.

Ergo Phizmiz: “Hailed in some quarters as the missing link between Viv Stanshall and Robert Wyatt”(Uncut) the song-writer,composer and performer opened the year with the album Eleven Songs (Loud and Quiet record of the week ) and his crazed music theatre piece Gargantua touring the UK and Europe .Both were loving detailed in a four page feature in The Wire. Ergo continued his year in typically prolific style with an opera commission from Trinity Laban and Tete-a-Tete, music for a Channel 4 animation series , started a movie soundtrack and has just begun a residency with the Opera Group. Ergo will perform either solo or with his three or four piece band with music from Eleven Songs and his forthcoming LP The Peacock.

Pete Um: A master of the miniature electro-acoustic song-poem, a form he has more or less invented and crystallised himself, his work displays a sardonic wit combined with a healthy misanthropy in micro-collages of voice, instruments, samples, and electronics."

To commemorate this joyous occasion, we decided to release EIN TOKSVIG. It's been a while coming, but here it is.




EIN TOKSVIG. Not a tribute to Sandi Toksvig, this song was written and recorded long before I'd ever heard the News Quiz. Now I have, of course, I think Sandi Toksvig is a marvellous little teddy-bear. The song itself, Toksvig aside, is heavy-metal nonsense. T.S. Eliot described Edward Lear's later nonsense poetry "the blues" - this is my answer. Nonsense metal. The rock'n'roll of non sequiturs and Toksvigs. But if the attitude of Lear's poetry defines it as "the blues", it is necessary for nonsense metal to fully adopt the necessary attitude of rage and testosterone. I recorded this song dressed entirely in leather, and had my nipples pierced for the occasion. The holes have since closed up.

Another press release...

"You lucky folks can catch Ergo Phizmiz at The Shacklewell Arms on the 19^th December playing songs from his forthcoming LP The Peacock due for release Spring 2014. 

Ergo the song-writer, composer and performer opened the year with the album  Eleven Songsand his crazed music theatre piece, Gargantua which toured the UK and Europe. 

He also had an opera commission from Trinity Laban and Tete-a-Tete, music for Channel 4s Random Acts animation series and started a movie soundtrack. Ergo will perform music fromEleven Songs and The Peacock at the Shacklewell Arms and details of this special gig are below.

Care in the Community Recordings presents a night of avant-pop music with “one man movement” (The Wire) Ergo Phizmiz and Leeds based deranged prog-rhythm-rock duo, Mucky Sailor.  They are joined by Pete Um and a stripped down set from Belarusian Sasha llyukevich backed on keyboards by Dave Maric (Steve Martland Band).  DJ support from Nick Name (WFMU) Tickets HERE"

DIK DOK - New album by Ergo Phizmiz

Ergo Phizmiz & Care in the Community Recordings present DIK DOK, the third part of Ergo Phizmiz's IDIOT TRILOGY. 

 

EIN TOKSVIG. Not a tribute to Sandi Toksvig, this song was written and recorded long before I'd ever heard the News Quiz. Now I have, of course, I think Sandi Toksvig is a marvellous little teddy-bear. The song itself, Toksvig aside, is heavy-metal nonsense. T.S. Eliot described Edward Lear's later nonsense poetry as "the blues" - this is my answer. Nonsense metal. The rock'n'roll of non sequiturs and Toksvigs. But if the attitude of Lear's poetry defines it as "the blues", it is necessary for nonsense metal to fully adopt the necessary attitude of rage and testosterone. I recorded this song dressed entirely in leather, and had my nipples pierced for the occasion. The holes have since closed up.

HEAVY METAL PEOPLE. This is what happens when you bring William Burroughs to the mosh-pit.

MERZYBEAT. This is what happens when you bring Kurt Schwitters to the disco.

PUN YOUNG. This is the after party. Schwitters is DJing.

THIRST CLASS. Composed and recorded on a train, on one of those strange occasions where a first-class ticket is cheaper than standard-class. The people in first class didn't like the sounds emanating from my headphones. But that's ok. I didn't like them.

MICKEY MOUSE. Funeral music.

DON'T LET THEM SEE US. Of course. (or, Hassan goes to a much more discreet disco).

THE PLAINTIVE HEATING GRIDDLE. The melancholy of inanimate objects. An abandoned kettle looks forlorn. A product of the Institute for Caressing Machines.

SCRATCH. The sound a very dry back makes.

MR PUNCH FINDS A MACHINE GUN. And does very bad things with it.

SATURDAY MORNING FLEA CORALE. That could be what caused the scratch.

MISER RARER. Dedicated to Cynthia Strings.

ANNA BOOM. This is my "Bohemian Rhapsody". Recorded in the Lake District with Elvis Herod, using Kurt Schwitter's Merzbarn and objects inside it as a percussion instrument. Anna Boom is in the cupboard at a party. Her husband isn't pleased. Anna won't come out of the cupboard. All hell breaks loose.

"Anna Boom" is probably my favourite track from all these piles o' shite I've thrown out.

This track was originally released by Bad Panda Records some time ago, and a marvellous film was made to accompany it by the brilliant collage film-maker Jared Brandle.

And why not dip into the first two parts of Ergo Phizmiz's IDIOT TRILOGY, "IDIOT" and "QUALITY & SERVICE".

Catch Ergo Phizmiz live at the Shacklewell Arms, London, December 19th 2013, with the mammoth line up of PETE UM and MUCKY SAILOR.

"Time To Think It Over" - New single by Ergo Phizmiz

The new single "Time To Think It Over" by Ergo Phizmiz, an outtake from the forthcoming LP "Eleven Songs". The single is released September 2012, the album released December 3rd on Care In The Community Recordings.

Ergo Phizmiz dates, mid 2012

June 6th - Release of Populista CD version of Robert Ashley's "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon".


June 15th - Release of "It's a Sin" single on Care in the Community 7"


July 1st - Release of FUNBAG #1 on Chinstrap.


July 27th - Solo performance on the Isle of Wight, for the Undecided Art Collective.


August 2nd - Preview of "Mike the Headless Chicken" at a secret location in Bridport, followed by the Chinstrap Marching Band through town, and IF: 2 with Greater Than or Equal To, Oblivian Substanshall, Elvis Herod and more at another secret location.


August 4th - Premiere of "Queen of Names" one man show, and premiere of Elvis Herod's "Mike the Headless Chicken" opera at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival, Riverside Studios, London.


August 5th - Second performance of "Mike the Headless Chicken" at Tete-a-Tete: The Opera Festival, Riverside Studios, London. 


August 18th-22nd - Premiere of augmented theatre piece "Interzone: The Grinder" at Shoreditch Fringe Festival. Written by Ergo Phizmiz, produced by Joel Cahen.


September - Release of "Eleven Songs" LP & CD on Care in the Community Recordings.


September 5th - Premiere of Les Antliaclastes Marionettes "The Old Man of the Mountain" at Vidy Theatre, Lausanne.


October - Release of People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz "The Keystone Cut-Ups" DVD on Illegal Art.


October 19th - premiere broadcast for Ergo Phizmiz's radiophonic ornithological kaleidoscope "Conversations With Birds" on Bayerischer Rundfunk.

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.

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!

"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.

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

Ergo Phizmiz news, mid 2010

Eventful times ahead, and here at Phizmiz towers we find ourselves at a strange juncture, so what better time than to update on impending goodness and gracious...

"The Mourning Show" - Ergo Phizmiz's new opera about UK radio DJ Chris Evans' opens May 8th 2010 at DePlayer, Rotterdam, with a couple of European dates programmed around it. It is anticipated the opera will tour the UK and Europe later in the year. It will be presented alongside new A/V material, DJ sets, and collages.

"Things to Do and Make" - After many delays the album of eccentric pop music will be released by Care In The Community Recordings in July. Many of the songs will be familiar to anyone who's seen Ergo play live over the past couple of years, including "Mandrill", "Busby Berkeley", "Late", and "The Dapper Transvestite". Londoners can amuse themselves in a few weeks by spotting Ergo walking up and down Oxford Street with a big sign.

"Music For The Jilted Generation" - A new cover of the entirety of The Prodigy's seminal 1990s dancefloor filler will be released free by UpItUp Records in May, alongside a collection of all of Ergo's covers projects from 2002-2010.

"Toped Buts" - a new album of instrumental music and improvisation will be released as a limited edition CDr on Cataclyst Records imminently. Tracks include "Pajamas for His Apprentice", "Bally Buttons", and "Socks Reggae".

"The Faust Cycle" has continued to garner great reviews around the blogosphere. Take a peep at one of the most recent, at Continuo. And for readers in Deutschland, you could do worse than pick up the latest issue of Beat Magazine, which features a long interview with Ergo about the creation of this 15 hour slab of audio beef.

Chinstrap - Ergo's free, Creative Commons netlabel Chinstrap is at Chinstrapmusic.blogspot.com, with new releases due from Angela Valid and Plushgoolash.

Ergo is also working on new material for the work-in-progress The Old Man Of The Mountain of Patrick Sims & Les Anticliastes Marionettes; the early stage planning for a mechanical opera about the English clown Joseph Grimaldi; and a new album of experimental pop and sound-design.

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.