Welcome to the only official site for People Like Us and Vicki Bennett
Our new People Like Us AV performance The Library of Babel will be on at Brighton Cinecity at Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts on 14 November 2023, on a double bill with our good friend Blevin Blectum.
Thanks to The WIRE Magazine for having us write The Inner Sleeve feature in the new October 2023 issue of the magazine. We chose Marc & the Mambas “Untitled”.
We’ll be showing some People Like Us films at Craig Baldwin’s Other Cinema on 16 September 2023 at ATA on Valencia Street. Click on the link above for more info about Other Cinema. Please note, this is a screening, not a performance.
1st September 2023, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction at 11pm UK
We were talking about our contribution to killing the music industry, in the first of a series of specials that commemorate 60 years of the cassette.
Program info and 30-day archive: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001pv3x
Vicki’s segment:
WEDNESDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2023 AT 18:30
https://www.paard.nl/event/double-bill-negativland-people-like-us/
We play a double bill at Paard in The Hague, Netherlands the week before the PLU residency at Cafe OTO, London, where Negativland will also appear.
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 Shows are, and have been archived in perpetuity for over 20 years now, which is exactly how long DO or DIY has been on WFMU, and is returning to its original slot after Seven Second Delay.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.
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 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
SATURDAY 15 JULY 2023, 8PM
“MISCHIEVOUS MISAPPROPRIATION MAYHEM” (CARL STONE / VICKI BENNETT / SCANNER) + CARL STONE (SOLO) + SYLVIA KASTEL (DJ)
After the fact: here’s a clip, courtesy of Robin Rimbaud:
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!
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
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
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 You: about 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