Ergo Phizmiz

Thursday, 30 August 2012

"GARGANTUA" 2013 UK Tour Dates

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

"Papalaka Papalaka" - A Spoken-Word Audio/Video Opera by Ergo Phizmiz

A spoken-word audio/video opera by Ergo Phizmiz, with text entirely snipped from the writings of Noel Coward. The audio is created from Ergo's collection of gramophone records, a sample from Monteverdi's "Combattimento de Tancredi", a wooden kitchen door, and Ergo's "Hallucination Duets".

"The Impulse to Shoot at Every Shadow" by Ergo Phizmiz from Ergo Phizmiz on Vimeo.

Text-Collage, Sound-Collage & Production by Ergo Phizmiz

Voices by Ergo Phizmiz, Flora Bertolli & Martha Moopette

* * *

When the curtain rises the stage is in darkness.

There is the sound of voices. Enter Young Man

followed by Young Woman. He turns up lights,

disclosing a comfortable little study with

a sofa, armchairs, books, etc.,

and the remains of a fire in the grate.

In January I went to Paris and breakfasted daily, curtains of wisteria

and serried ranks of snow capped mountains.

For the whole of the following year I did not work, my cough rapidly disappeared,

and then in a moment their colour and vitality faded.

Some little question of English grammar I bit her arm right through to the bone.

I drilled resonantly, a slight strain, you play exclusively in your mind,

I may add, that was not entirely free from superciliousness.

To this day we still meet occasionally and have a good time, but

the paths back into the past are long and tortuous, and new faiths,
like new policemen, were sick and tired of it.

My last link with familiar life, disappearing down the

M & F

handbags, hats, coats, sandwiches, apples, oranges, shoes, stockings, and bits of fur,

a tinny piano, too many chairs, a few mottled looking glasses,

always a pervasive smell of last week's cooking.

Small miserable groups of people huddled in corners.

I had still one more battle. Cockie in his box,

Mother to greet us blind in a dirty kimono, nor could
I have chosen a more thoroughly unsuitable place.

Conducting a furtive, illicit detail, but the climax
was always the same.

I soon became bored and wanted to go home,

made up into dark little rooms and passages,

and one could see across miles of marshes,

a square edifice wearing perkily a pink corrugated tin roof,

falling to pieces,

The noise is deafening – the chorus in various travelling dresses

are clustered round the low counter, trying to get the baggage examined

quickly, and talking, and shouting.

Young Englishman strolls languidly in.

M & F

there were two small ponds, five poplars,

a ramshackle garden consisting almost entirely of hedges,

and an ancient, deeply green orchard with thick grass

and low growing apple trees, hats, coats, sandwiches,

apples, oranges, shoes, stockings, and bits of fur,

a tinny piano, too many chairs, a few mottled looking glasses,

always a pervasive smell of last week's cooking,

two small ponds, five poplars, a ramshackle garden.

I was suddenly conscious-smitten by the sight of a poor old gentleman,

raspberried with the utmost fervour, although far from assured,

had at least been enough to procure me a dignified pose.

It was the result of careful thought, only for the sake of the salary,

seemed to be a static, over-cautious mania for travel and change,

but to me it wasn't foolish at all.

She takes the breakfast-tray from side table and rests it on her knees.

She proceeds to pour out coffee, she sips some of it

and then begins to eat a little toast. The telephone rings again.

She takes off receiver and speaks with her mouth full.

It is patronising, of course, to a certain degree,

but not consciously or disagreeably so;

I managed tactfully to erase some of the bloodstains.

As a new animal I received many surprising visitors in my cage.

My vision of myself at eight and twelve and sixteen is clear.

I know how I looked, of course.

Superlatives flew through the air, richochetting off mouldering midsummer.

Even Irene forsook me for a while.

I used to get packets of bacon on credit, restraining

the impulse to shoot at every shadow cast by the street lamp.

Her failure lay within herself, in her abrupt pride, and

sudden sharp intolerance, and her inability, when in certain moods,

to accept the small change of friendship, even from those

who loved her dearly,

M & F

deeply green orchard with thick grass

and low growing apples trees, hats, coats, sandwiches,

apples, oranges, shoes, stockings, and bits of fur,

a tinny piano, too many chairs, a few mottled looking glasses,

always a pervasive smell of last week's cooking,

two small ponds, five poplars, a ramshackle garden.

Black out. Close tabs.

Tuesday, 7 August 2012

Music for Merz & Barn Vs Opera for Mills & Boon

Recorded live at Cafe Oto, London, in July 2012, "Music for Merz & Barn vs Opera for Mills & Boon" imagines a boxing match of aesthetics at the end of the universe, refereed by Marlene Dietrich.

Contributors to the boxing match are: Kurt Schwitters "Ursonate", field-recordings from the Elterwater Merzbarn, the Marlene Dietrich song "Lili Marlene", extracts from Mills & Boon novels, Russian church bells, Monteverdi's "Combattimento di Tancredi", and Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time".

Ergo performed on voice, piano, music-box, glass, laptop, turntable. He also threw shapes. What else would you expect?

The performance evening was curated by Discrepant.net

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Ergo Phizmiz "Music for Theatre, Film & Radio" released for a limited time via Pay-With-a-Tweet

Twenty-four choice choppings of instrumental music by UK based composer, collagist, writer, film-maker, imaginary raconteur, and fancy-footworker. Recorded between 2009-2012 for radioplays, short films, theatre, and opera.

This release will be available for a limited time only, in the run up to Ergo Phizmiz's appearances at Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2012 and Interzone Theatre's "The Grinder" project, which is written by Ergo Phizmiz.

It is available exclusively via the Pay-With-a-Tweet service, and why not eh?

GO TO DOWNLOAD PAGE

Booking for Ergo Phizmiz: "Queen of Names"

Booking for Elvis Herod's "Mike the Headless Chicken"

Booking for "The Grinder"

Friday, 13 July 2012

GARGANTUA by Ergo Phizmiz - UK tour March 2013

Announcing the new theatre work written, composed & directed by Ergo Phizmiz.

Monday, 9 July 2012

Ergo Phizmiz sings Gilbert & Sullivan

In December 2011 Ergo Phizmiz recorded four Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, acappella, from memory, for Vicki Bennett's mammoth 744 hour radio-broadcast "Radio Boredcast".

These recordings, along with the rest of the Boredcast, is now archived by the ever marvellous WFMU.

"Around the age of 11 or 12 I became obsessed with the comic operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan. This fascination lasted around 3 years. There were posters of W.S. Gilbert (the "S" stands for Schwenck, rather spectacularly) and Arthur Sullivan on my bedroom wall.

For years the thought of returning to their works "from memory" has been at the back of my mind. My very boring contribution to Radio Boredcast is "acappella" versions of the G & S operettas "HMS Pinafore", "Iolanthe", "The Pirates of Penzance" and "The Mikado".

Some of them I know better than others. In the cases where I didn't know the melodies, I made them up or roughly talked through them. I also decided to not use different voices for characters (these recordings are my second takes - the first takes sounded like The Goon Show and to be honest I had far too much fun doing them for it be genuinely boring), and to omit stage directions, so we are left with a very boring barrage of Victorian words, tuned and untuned, from my tired, monotone voice."

Ergo Phizmiz sings "The Mikado"

Ergo Phizmiz sings "The Pirates of Penzance"

Ergo Phizmiz sings "Iolanthe"

Ergo Phizmiz sings "HMS Pinafore"

Ergo Phizmiz is a composer, writer, and multimedia artist. He makes pop, theatre, installations, opera, radio-art, radioplays, sound-collages and performances. He lives in Bridport, UK, and has a headache. He never wants to perform Gilbert & Sullivan again.