Category: timeline

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Rainbow Room by Soft Cell

I’ve been making this in the past couple of weeks and the video is just released today. I think it is a beautiful song.

The Soft Cell release info is: new single ‘The Rainbow Room’, a moving ballad set in early 80s New York, video by Vicki Bennett, and taken from ‘Danceteria’, the sixth and final studio album from Marc Almond and Dave Ball, will be released on the 25th September 2026 via Republic of Music.

We have in fact become the main video makers for Marc and Soft Cell recently! Here are some of the others. Marc Almond posts a lot on his site too.

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A Musical Update, Illegal Art is BACK!

There has also been an important development with my new album release. I recently heard from Illegal Art, the label who released a number of my works around 13 years ago before the label shut down. Illegal Art is starting up again (hurray!) this week (hurray!!). This time in a different form: this time around not just a sampling-related label, but now with a more genre-leaning direction. Here is their Instagram Post from a little earlier today and here is their website: https://reboot.illegalart.net/new/

The new People Like Us album is going to be called THE RHiZOME.
We are aiming to release the PEOPLE LIKE US CD in September/October this year, on Illegal Art.

The PEOPLE LIKE US IndieGoGo campaign is still open where you can pledge to pre-order this album, plus a wide selection of other items including lathe-cut vinyl, and we very much welcome pledges for items which are still in stock/available.

Many thanks for your support.

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The high art of collaging: PEOPLE LIKE US

This really great interview was recorded by Heinrich Deisl last summer when I played at donaufestival. It will be broadcast tonight:

https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20260308/831278/People-Like-Us-im-PortraetSo.

8.3. , 20-21:00: The high art of collaging: PEOPLE LIKE US in Ö1 Time-tone portrait
As part of the new, three-hour time-tone on Sunday from 19:00 to 22:00 today with full program dedicated to International Women’s Day:

British media artist and radio producer Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us is a pioneer in audiovisual performances. Since 1991, she has been working with material found from films and old vinyl records and uses methods of collage and sampling to create sound and visual worlds that re-connect our media presence.

Profound archival knowledge, among other things, about British popular culture, on the one hand, and a distinctly humorous approach, on the other hand, are characterized by her creations. In 2006, she was the first artist to be given unlimited access to the BBC archives.
At donaufestival 2025, People Like Us presented the Austrian premiere of their current AV work “The Library of Babel”, based on the story of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, a principal representative of the so-called “. Magical realism.

In this radio portrait, we traverse her work for the Prelinger Film Archive, the archive of Britain’s first electro-acoustic composer Daphne Oram, collaborations with radio host John Peel and the band Negativland, and her ‘DO or DIY’ series for non-commercial radio WFMU
Vicki Bennet is a representative of artistic DIY – do it yourself. She follows the approach of “Sharity”: a combination of “share” and “charity” as well as the name of a current album by People Like Us.

Infos + Playlist: https://oe1.orf.at/…/831278/People-Like-Us-im-Portraet
30 days of listening on the Ö1 site or on ORF Sound https://sound.orf.at/radio/oe1

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Album fundraiser relaunch

I’ve relaunched my album fundraiser, keeping it open for new pledges until 31 December 2025. When IndieGoGo changed ownership, they reset all campaigns in progress and suddenly showed them as “100% funded”, even if we hadn’t met our goals. So to be clear: our campaign was NOT fully funded, even though it looked that way, and it wiped out the momentum of our final push, since it looked like we made our goal.

All related costs are covered and fully paid for. I always put my own income last, and it’s that part that is underfunded now – actually being able to pay myself for the months of work it takes to make the album and stay afloat.

If you’d like to support, share, or add to your pledge, you can do so here:

www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/vickibennett/people-like-us-new-album-cd-and-lathe-cut-vinyl

Thank you so much for your support so far! 

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Conversation – The Little Database

Had a fun conversation with three friends a few weeks back, which has now been edited into a podcast which you can listen to above on University of Minnesota Press site.

What is the opposite of “big” data? In a society where households commonly store personal archives of photos, financial records, and other documents, the “little” database—the personal data collection that is stored and backed up and not accessed frequently—deserves a category of its own. In The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats, Daniel Scott Snelson examines globally accessible little databases, such as Textz, Eclipse, and UbuWeb, explores how digital archives dramatically transform the artefacts they host, and asks how they might help us better understand our own private collections in turn. Snelson is joined in conversation with Vicki Bennett, Craig Dworkin, and Luca Messarra.

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Co-Creating “Time Inside the Violet” — A New Video for The Soft Pink Truth

Has been most excellent to co-create a new video for The Soft Pink Truth alongside animator Matthew Murray Sullivan – “Time Inside the Violet”, features Drew Daniel (Soft Pink Truth), M.C. Schmidt on piano, and strings arranged and played by Ulaş Kurugüllü, accompanied by Filippo Tramo (French Horn), Elin Andersson (Trumpet), Simon Fransman (Trombone), and Nicklas Dahlin (Saxophone). We made the disruptive mincemeat-and-worms middle section of this video.

SPT’s new album “Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever?”, comes out on the Thrill Jockey label on January 30th. Pre-order the LP/CD/digi from Thrill Jockey Records, Bandcamp and other purveyors of music.

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People Like Us performance and conference curation in Newcastle

Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle / Afternoon session is free; evening programme £5/3
starandshadow.org.uk

In collaboration with Culture Lab (Newcastle University), wildpop 2025 takes place across Culture Lab and Star & Shadow Cinema. It’s a lot of info so just look at the poster 🙂

7 Nov: After morning sessions at Culture Lab, 2–5pm artist presentations at Star & Shadow feature Daniel Bird, Gavin Butt, Dina Kelberman, and Graham Dolphin. The evening programme follows with performances by Elaine Mitchener & Loré Lixenberg, Dina Kelberman, People Like Us, and YEAH YOU, and DJ Kenosist.

8 Nov: Morning and afternoon conference-style presentations and roundtables at Culture Lab lead into the evening performances by Mark Fell, Rian Treanor, Elvin Brandhi + Tengal, One or Several Wolves (Toi Guy, Mark Wardlaw, Stewart Smith), GUT (Pinnel, Cath Tyler, Mariam Rezaei), John Bowers (GLOW), and Adam Soper (BLACK BILE: Melancholy, Hauntings, and Hope for Change), and DJ Sean C.

Culture Lab daytime sessions (10am–5pm) are free to attend. https://wild-pop.org/

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I’ve just launched my new album fundraiser

I launched my IndieGoGo campaign last night for my new album 1000 Platypuses, and I’d love your support. This fundraiser aims to cover 100 days of creative work — the time required to compose, edit, and record the album.

Every early pledge really helps build momentum and shows others that this project is worth supporting.

There are numerous perks available — including pre-release downloads, signed CDs, handmade lathe-cut vinyl, and original collages — but even a small contribution or sharing the link would mean a great deal.

Here’s the campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/people-like-us-new-album-cd-and-lathe-cut-vinyl/x/30066999