People Like Us returns to the WFMU airwaves

Happy to announce that we will return to our weekly radio show DO or DIY with People Like Us on WFMU for the Summer Schedule 2023 :). Mark your calendar for weekly shows through the season starting Wednesday 7 June, 7-8pm NY Time (that’s midnight-1am Wednesday night in the UK). Shows are, and have been archived in perpetuity for over 20 years now, which is exactly how long DO or DIY has been on WFMU, and is returning to its original slot after Seven Second Delay.

Follow the Listen link at the time: wfmu.org and then listen to the archive(s) here.

DO or DIY with People Like Us

Thermos Explorer CD (2023 reissue)

Recently when compiling tracks for our retrospective double CD “Sharity!” we noticed what unique energy the Thermos Explorer (2000) period of People Like Us has. It represents to us the time when quite a lot of changes were happening, the dawn of fast internet and affordable computers, napster and email, and for People Like Us the same time marks personal changes – having been seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident and spending much of the time making this being pretty immobile (hence inner sleeve artwork, by Matt Wand!), and once out of hospital deciding to go to the US for the first time to visit various friends made as a result of all the networking that had suddenly become possible.

Also, that time brought an interesting transition for technology from analogue, early digital (MiniDisc) editing, having a wonderful Roland DJ70 sampling keyboard, yet not quite having a fast enough computer yet…

Thermos Explorer was originally released in 2000 on the wonderful Hot Air label, and that first edition went out of print maybe 15 years or so ago. So here we are bringing this special album back to life. People Like Us has changed quite a bit over the years, and this is a time capsule of a new century and lots of new opportunities, new collaborations, and new friends.

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/thermos-explorer-2023-reissue

releases June 2, 2023

Carl Stone and People Like Us live collaboration

CARL STONE AT 70 – THREE-DAY RESIDENCY at CAFE OTO – 13 TO 15 JULY 2023
As part of this residency People Like Us will join Carl Stone (along with Scanner) for a panel and live performance.

FRIDAY 14 JULY 2023, 8PM
CARL STONE / KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI (DUO) + CARL STONE (SOLO) + PANEL DISCUSSION WITH CARL STONE / VICKI BENNETT / SCANNER / EMILY BICK

£15 £13 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

SATURDAY 15 JULY 2023, 8PM
“MISCHIEVOUS MISAPPROPRIATION MAYHEM” (CARL STONE / VICKI BENNETT / SCANNER) + CARL STONE (SOLO) + SYLVIA KASTEL (DJ)

£15 £13 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

Cafe OTO is delighted to host a very-special 70th birthday residency with pioneering composer, Carl Stone! Featuring avant-garde electronics, forensic sampling, and live computing unveiling a strange musical language, these will be his first London performances in five years.

Dubbed the King of Sampling by the Village Voice, and one of the pioneers of live computer music. Carl Stone started originally with tape recorders and turntables in 1972. In 1986 he adapted his performance to include live computing, which he continues to this day. In addition to solo performance, he often collaborates with other musicians in ensembles that merge and blend musical reality. Pitchfork called Stone’s music “like a dance party in a room made of funhouse mirrors” and the New York Times called it “a powerful stimulant with lingering euphoric effects”.

Now in his 70th year, Carl Stone’s plan for his Cafe OTO residency will feature his solo work, plus collaborators helping him explore acoustic resonance, media bombardment, Irony, elegance, economy and wit. Guests include Robin Rimbaud (Scanner), Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Miki Yui (Realistic Monk), Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Silvia Kastel, plus panel discussions, interviews and DJ time!

SHARITY! Selected Works of People Like Us

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/sharity-selected-works-of-people-like-us

A signed DOUBLE CD containing 1 hour 58 minutes of music we’ve selected through the years since we started releasing music. Contains remastered solo audio works from the past 30 years, and collaborations with our friends Ergo Phizmiz, Wobbly, Matmos, Mr Rotorvator and Gwilly Edmondez.

We’ve not released a retrospective since 2002 (Recyclopaedia Britannica), and we are aware that we will not be releasing the new album until early 2024 since we’ll not be working on that in full after we’ve made a new performance (in progress!). And we want to do something NOW! PLUS this will also help keep things ticking over for us later this year when the Indiegogo funds run out.

Please consider supporting our indiegogo here: 
www.indiegogo.com/projects/people-like-us-new-album-and-tour/

credits
People Like Us | Ergo Phizmiz | Wobbly | Matmos | Gwilly Edmondez | Mr Rotorvator

People Like Us Residency at Cafe OTO

PEOPLE LIKE US Cafe OTO ARTIST RESIDENCY 
27 / 28 / 29 OCTOBER 2023

Tickets: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/people-like-us-three-day-residency/
Buy PASS for all three events £28 ADVANCE £15 MEMBERS
or for individual events £16 £14 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

PEOPLE LIKE US | NEGATIVLAND | ERGO PHIZMIZ | GWILLY EDMONDEZ 
POREST | IRENE MOON | WOBBLY | HEARTY WHITE

Cafe OTO is proud to announce a new artist residency, featuring multimedia artist Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. Vicki has collaborated with a wide range of artists and musicians; some are joining us for this 3-Day residency, alongside some screenings and discussions. The residency includes a preview of the new People Like Us audiovisual performance Is This The Real Life?

People Like Us

DAY 1 | 8PM
HEARTY WHITE (compère) | POREST | IRENE MOON | NEGATIVLAND
PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ & GWILLY EDMONDEZ (trio)
DAY 1 PASS £16 £14 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

HEARTY WHITE compère 
Our residency compère is Hearty White, a performer based in Lexington, Kentucky. His one-hour weekly radio show “Miracle Nutrition with Hearty White” has aired on WFMU from 2012 until the present. https://wfmu.org/playlists/ha

Hearty White

POREST
Porest is the music and performance outlet of post-American artist and producer Mark Gergis. For decades, Porest has issued a trail of confounding agitprop sound art, post-globalized hate-pop, diabolical radio dramas, big songs and small songs. Porest’s blatant embezzlement of human syntax and cultural misunderstanding broadcasts vital mixed messages across all fields, forging carefully rearranged realities that both avoid and indulge the inherent trappings of radical art and politics. Live performances integrate Porest’s music, performance and sound into a grand total sum that can’t be unseen. Ongoing collaborations have included: Negativland (USA) Alan Bishop / Sun City Girls (USA), Aavikko (Finland), Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us (UK), among others. Porest has performed and toured worldwide, with albums released on Nashazphone (Cairo), Discrepant (UK), and in the US on the Seeland, Abduction and Resipiscent labels. 
In the 1990s and 2000s, Mark was co-founder of the long-running experimental California music and performance collective Mono Pause, as well as its offshoot Neung Phak. In his other life, Mark is an archivist and producer for global music releases on the Sublime Frequencies and Sham Palace labels, including compilations and documentary works such as I Remember Syria, Cambodian Cassette Archives, Saigon Rock & Soul, Choubi Choubi (Iraq), Dabke: Sounds from the Syrian Houran and his extensive work with artists Omar Souleyman (Syria) and Erikin Koray (Turkey). https://porest.bandcamp.com/

Mark Gergis (Porest)

IRENE MOON
Since 1997, Scientifically Speaking with Irene Moon has been presenting The Lectography: musical lectures about insects and other arthropods in an attempt to elevate entomology as a rock genre. Performing at basement house shows and more famous music venues like the Knitting Factory and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Irene Moon has toured the US, Europe, and Australia. She created over 30 musical volumes during her career and performed live radio broadcasts dealing with entomological topics on WFMU in New York and other radio stations. Irene Moon (a.k.a Katja C. Seltmann, Ph.D.) is the Director of the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She brings the aesthetics from the entomology laboratory in front of alternative audiences in the form of absurd, factual presentations about insects. 
Her performance at Cafe Oto PLU Residency is a lounge-inspired lecture on bee biodiversity and evolution titled “Will You Bee Mind” that incorporates psychedelic imagery, pop-styled torch songs, and comedy. https://www.begoniasociety.org

Irene Moon

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ & GWILLY EDMONDEZ 
First commissioned for The Wire 40 Anniversary and now seen for the first time in expanded form, this new trio showcases a whole new AV performance dedicated to collage, technology and the cut-up. 
“The interplay between People Like Us, Ergo Phizmiz and Gwilly Edmondez creates a harmonious and dynamic show that captivates and enthrals. The combination of music, poetry, and performance art creates a magical and unforgettable experience for the audience.” – Tough Sell Zine

Gwilly Edmondez, People Like Us, Ergo Phizmiz

NEGATIVLAND
What’s a recording? Are they safe? Are the things being played back true, or are they simply becoming familiar? You can wait for your own brain to come up with the answers, or you can go hear music in a room full of people. Don’t worry — you won’t even realize how much of it you’re going to remember.
We are pleased as pugs to be participating in the People Like Us residency — whatever we end up doing is sure to only happen there, because you can never hear the same recording twice. https://negativland.com/

Negativland

DAY 2 | 8PM
HEARTY WHITE (compère) | WOBBLY solo | ERGO PHIZMIZ solo
PEOPLE LIKE US solo | GWILLY EDMONDEZ solo
DAY 2 PASS £16 £14 ADVANCE £8 MEMBERS

HEARTY WHITE compère
Our residency compère is Hearty White, a performer based in Lexington, Kentucky. His one-hour weekly radio show “Miracle Nutrition with Hearty White” has aired on WFMU from 2012 until the present. https://wfmu.org/playlists/ha

WOBBLY
Jon Leidecker (aka Wobbly) is a human in the loop, improvising with people and machines that listen. His work with sampling and feedback blurs any easy distinction between his solo and collaborative work, including touring and recording with Negativland, the Thurston Moore Group, People Like Us, Jennifer Walshe, Zeena Parkins, Zoh Amba, Dieter Moebius & Tim Story, Matmos, Thomas Dimuzio, Fred Frith and Huun-Huur-Tu (among others). Lectures on the various secret histories of electronic music have been presented at Mills, Stanford, Oxford, Peabody, UC Berkeley, and MACBA.
As well as playing as part of Negativland, Jon will perform a solo set for this residency. https://www.detritus.net/wobbly/news.html

Jon Leidecker (Wobbly)

ERGO PHIZMIZ
Ergo Phizmiz is a composer, writer, collagist, stage director and radio playwright. Recent projects have included animated stage designs for “The Rake’s Progress” at the Royal Academy of Music and Maggio Musicale Firenze, and the huge, smash hit community pantomime “The Quantum Horse” in collaboration with Cube Microplex, Bristol. Their multiple award winning work for radio includes programmes for Bayerischer Rundfunk, Deutschlandradiokultur, BBC Radio 3, BBC 6Music, WFMU, West Deutscher Rundfunk, VPRO and Resonance FM. Recent music releases have mainly comprised the deluxe holiday leisure trilogy on Strategic Tape Reserve “Elmyr”, “Plaza Centraal” and “Owl and Monkey Haven”. Ergo is currently developing a new operatic work “Adapting Don Quixote” as a PhD at the University of Bristol. 
Ergo will perform a rare solo set for this residency. http://ergophizmizmusic.bandcamp.com

Ergo Phizmiz

PEOPLE LIKE US
Residency host Vicki Bennett will preview her brand new audiovisual performance “Is This The Real Life?” This work explores themes of reality and perception and the relationship between image and sound. https://peoplelikeus.org

GWILLY EDMONDEZ
Gwilly Edmondez emerged in the 1980s from Bridgend, South Wales, where he was a founder member of Radioactive Sparrow, once dubbed ‘the most legendary band you’ve probably never heard of.’ Gwilly practices a form of composition that disavows fixity and rehearsal, preferring an approach that dissolves the line between ‘life’ and ‘performance’ in ways that compromise neither. Having coined the term Wild Pop to describe his aesthetic as both a solo artist and as Gustav Thomas in YEAH YOU (est. 2013), his embracing the age of evaporation is manifest in a relentless autopathology oriented towards devotional sublimation.
Gwilly closes Day 2 of the residency with a special dictaphone karaoke set, a real crowd pleaser. https://gwillyedmondez.bandcamp.com/

Gwilly Edmondez

DAY 3 | 2-5PM
PEOPLE LIKE US & HEARTY WHITE CONVERSATION, VARIATIONS LECTURE & CHART SWEEP PERFORMANCE
DAY 3 PASS £10 £8 ADVANCE £5 MEMBERS

VICKI BENNETT and HEARTY WHITE IN CONVERSATION
A discussion between the People Like Us and Hearty White, followed by a Q&A.
https://peoplelikeus.org | https://wfmu.org/playlists/HA

JON LEIDECKER “VARIATIONS: A HISTORY OF SAMPLING MUSIC”
Morton Feldman’s remark that “The degree to which a music’s notation is responsible for much of the composition itself is one of history’s best-kept secrets” referred to the medium of sheet music. But the comment is just as true now that the site of the musical composition has migrated from written notation to the captured recording. The creative process of modern music production is revealed to the listening audience in the form of collage and sampling music precisely through its use of familiar materials;  through a demonstration of how known compositions and sounds can be transformed, the tools used by all sound engineers to construct modern popular music are made transparent.
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/buscador/radio/serie/variations-9458

GWILLY EDMONDEZ SINGS “CHART SWEEP”
CHART SWEEP (AKA TIME SWEEP) is a 2-part mix created by Hugo Keesing using up to 5 seconds of each and every #1 since the mid-fifties, in order, up until 1981 in Part 1 and into the early nineties in Part 2. find more info at ubu.com/sound/keesing.html
Gwilly Edmondez started watching Top of the Pops when he was 3. From then on he was obsessed with pop music. he has developed an approach to music making that collides a pop sensibility (with all its showbiz delusional rhetoric) with the materials and mentalness of experimental music.
ubu.com/sound/edmondez.html | https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/gwilly-edmondez-sings-chart-sweep

People Like Us fundraiser for a new album & tour!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/people-like-us-new-album-and-tour

We made a fundraiser to help us spend time this year to create a new touring audiovisual performance and album, with a whole list of very exclusive merchandise and experiences in connection with that. Hope you are able to lend a hand and take this show on the road with us 🙂 The initial campaign is now completed but for now, you can still get a whole bunch of exclusive merch and recordings and help us to keep things going this year while making the new work.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/people-like-us-new-album-and-tour

Rhapsody in Glue Ltd Edition Lathe Cut LP


PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZRhapsody in Glue
Limited edition 12” lathe cut clear vinyl LP & download
Release Date: 26 November 2022
Pre-order on Bandcamp from Friday 7 October 2022

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/rhapsody-in-glue-lp

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz are pleased to announce the release of a new limited edition vinyl album, “Rhapsody in Glue”.

Rhapsody in Glue began its journey as part of the Codpaste podcast on New York tri-state area radio station WFMU in 2008. With Rhapsody in Glue we find a unique approach to constructing a record. People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz decided to publicly tear apart their respective practices and create an album “in the open”, presenting on a seafood-filled-platter the process of collaborative collage composition – informally discussing and jabbering nonsense to one another, resulting in the Codpaste free podcast series. Rhapsody in Glue was the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.

The album was initially released as an online-only release on Bleep in 2008, and now for the first time ever we are making it available in a Limited Edition of 100, hand numbered copies on 12” high quality remastered stereo lathe cut vinyl, hand cut by Bladud Flies! It comes with 300gsm inserts, lyric sheet, digital download codes, both for this, and also the original digital album release from 2008. The vinyl will ship with a polylined inner sleeve.

The vinyl will ship within a polylined inner sleeve. Includes a ‘lathe cut’ care card. Limited edition of 100, hand numbered.

Gone, Gone Beyond 360 Real-Space Immersive Cinema

“Hey, hey, have you ever tried… reaching out to the other side?”

Gone, Gone Beyond is an immersive a/v spatial cinema work by People Like Us (Vicki Bennett), which breaks the rectangle, smashing the thin screen into tiny fragments, looking beyond the frame, climbing through to see what’s behind.  

The initial work was commissioned by Naut Humon, the founder of immersive theatre project RML CineChamber, Gone, Gone Beyond is a 10 screen / 6 or 8 speaker piece, with seamless wrap around projection and surround sound where the audience sit inside. It comprises of movie and musical compositions, animated and sample-based/musique concrète collage juxtaposed with content filmed/recorded by the artist, all sewn together in a giant patchwork. Pull on a thread and watch whole new narratives expand and unravel all at once on a 360º palette. The project has been a work in progress since 2017, and showed for the first time in Autumn 2021 in feature length format.  

The work’s title and underlying concepts come from the Heart Sutra, a key Buddhist text, describing how all phenomena are empty in form yet ultimately interconnected. The last lines of the Heart Sutra say ‘gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā’, which means “gone, gone beyond, gone beyond that a bit more, and then beyond that a bit further”. This reflects perfectly the action of going beyond the frame to where there are no edges to the narrative – just emptiness.

In this 360º format, time and space becomes elasticated, with the use of collaged video furthering the reflection on how information comes to us as fragments and that nothing is fixed. A new narrative-thread is woven in the mind of each viewer every time the work is seen, limited only to that exact time and space – just as the Heart Sutra reminds us that the only constant is change, and everything is related with no fixed source.

The initial in-process tester movie screened in San Francisco in October 2017 at RML’s own Recombinant Festival at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. Since then the work has been in development, with a private screening event in April 2019 Goldsmiths SIML for potential partners. The work will screen at nyMusikk, Oslo; SPILL Festival, Ipswich; Attenborough Centre (ACCA), Brighton; and London Barbican, in Autumn 2021. Version 2 of GGB screened in San Francisco’s Gray Area in May 2022 to great critical acclaim.

PAST:

SAN FRANCISCO Gray Area
12-27 May 2022 https://grayarea.org/gonegonebeyond/

OSLO Black Box Teater present KinoKammer with nyMusikk
13-16 October 2021 https://blackbox.no/en/e5115e56-702e-41a2-badb-cb21d1626082/

IPSWICH DanceEast as part of SPILL FESTIVAL
28-30 October 2021 https://www.danceeast.co.uk/performances/gone-gone-beyond-au21/

BRIGHTON Attenborough Centre (ACCA)
4-6 November 2021 https://www.attenboroughcentre.com/events/4028/gone-gone-beyond/

LONDON Barbican Centre
10-13 November 2021 https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/people-like-us-gone-gone-beyond

Changing Your Mind

Changing Your Mind is a new 50-minute crowd-sourced radio collage work by Vicki Bennett. It will be broadcast on Deutschlandfunk on 14 April 2023 at 0:05 (German time).

Meditation is a means of transforming the mind and has been practised for thousands of years. It encourages concentration, and clarity, and can have a transformative effect that can lead to a new understanding of life, and be used as a creative tool. This is a crowd-sourced audio collage by Vicki Bennett, where 48 participants respond to questions about the subject of meditation and consciousness and their experiences and relationship to this.

LISTEN:

List of participants:
Abhayadevi, Akashamitra, Rahne Alexander, Tim Atkins, Vicki Bennett, Marcus Boon, William Boon, Liz Bot, Leanne Bryan, Falco Carey, Jeff Carey, Leon Clowes, Stephen Coates, Will Edmondes, Diane Farris, Jem Finer, Louise Gray, Maya Gürbüz, Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee, Phil Hallett, Kevin Hamilton, Dan Hayhurst, Mark Heath, Pea Hicks, Seth Horvitz, Peter Jaeger, Felix Kubin, Henry Lowengard, Tim Maloney, Lasse Marhaug, David McConville, Alex McKechnie, Irene Moon, Karen Oates, Kira O’Reilly, Ratnadeva, Sanghasiha, Saraka, Vic Scarborough, Nikolas Schreck, Adrian Shephard, Vanessa Sinclair, Sue Slagle, Suddhaka, David Toop, Vidyadasi, Pete Wallace, Richard Whitelaw

How Do Ideas Grow: Listening session and artist talk with People Like Us

Wednesday 12 April | 5:30PM – 8:00PM 
TURNER CONTEMPORARY – Foyle Rooms, Rendezvous, Margate CT9 1HG

Join OSE Associate Leon Clowes and internationally renowned audio-visual collage artist Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) for a listening session of ‘No One Is An Island’, Vicki’s WDR-commissioned radio piece that asks where ideas come from. The listening session will be followed by an artist ‘In-conversation’ and Q&A in which Leon and Vicki will discuss the provocations raised by the commission alongside Vicki’s creative processes and artistic concerns.

Booking is required – book a free ticket here

OSE Public Programme 2022-23

This event is held as part of Open School East’s 2022-23 Public Programme. This year’s Associate-led Public Programme responds to themes of social & ecological hybridity, as set out in the Associate’s first term curriculum entitled When The World Looks Back At Youabout storytelling, ecology and the weird led by artist Saelia Aparicio. Through explorations of the voice, the body and sensitive connections with natural and man-made networks that unite the world around us, the Associate-led Public Programme looks to and explores creativity and collectivity in green spaces.

You can find more Public Programme events at: openschooleast.org/events