Ergo Phizmiz interviewed by Ayoze Garcia

On a recent trip to Barcelona Ergo Phizmiz was interviewed in-depth on the telephone by Ayoze Garcia on Intangible23, who earlier in the year wrote detailed analyses of every episode of "The Faust Cycle".

The interview, which spans Ergo's "Collected Sound Installations", the album "Things to Do and Make", the death opera "The Mourning Show", and netlabel Chinstrap, features Spanish language text, with English language audio of the interview. You can read / listen here.

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!

Things to Make and Do - Ergo Phizmiz at Whitechapel Gallery

Ergo Phizmiz will be performing a special set from his new album "Things to Do and Make" at Whitechapel Gallery, London, on November 25th 2010, including a performance of songs created through an open invitation to local musicians.

The last time Ergo worked with musicians from the area local to a show to present his songs resulted in the album "Live in Warsaw", with Macio Moretti and Piotr Zabrodzki, which you can hear below:



This event is curated by Care in the Community Recordings.

More information and booking at Whitechapel Gallery.

The Critics are Dancing.....

The critics have been doing proverbial somersaults over the new Ergo Phizmiz album "Things to Do and Make", on Care in the Community Recordings.


"Phizmiz is a bona-fide songwriter juggling absurdist humour"- BBC

"Musical settings reveal an ear practised in making the magical brush shoulders with the mundane" - Drowned in Sound

"A genuinely intriguing album bursting with unusual sound effects, jaunty gypsy tunes, clackety electro, whistles, bells, typewriters and flashes of melancholy that all only hint at what this force of nature is capable of" - AU

"It’s very good indeed, but his idea of pop is a wholly individual universe of eccentricity, leftfield ideas and subversion, and all the better for it" - Americana-UK

"The first major and mainstream Ergo Phizmiz album may be a small independent release, but this album goes to show how major record companies have lost touch completely..ever so enjoyable...rather unique" - Pennyblack Music

"Bloody marvellous" - Clash Magazine

"Intelligent lyrics, fun melodies, frivolous and eclectic arrangement -- hell, he had me from the ukulele in the opening track" - Monsieur Delire

"A marvelous, manically-arranged set of odd pop songs" - Idletigers.wordpress.com

"Inventive pop, which is full of ideas" - Beyond the Noize


"Things to Do and Make" is available for order at Rough Trade, iTunes, Amazon, Zavvi, HMV, Play.com, and so on ......

Ergo Phizmiz Live at Rough Trade East, September 3rd 2010

Rough Trade East In-store - ERGO PHIZMIZ - Friday 3rd September, 7pm

Ergo Phizmiz will be playing a solo set of uberpop, primarily from the new album "Things to Do and Make", at Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, London. While you're there, why not pick up a copy of the album, released on Care in the Community Recordings. Oh yes.

Look forwards to seeing you there. Further info at Rough Trade.

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