This is on sale at The Wire’s online shop from 13 April 2021 and from selected newsagents, record and book shops from 15 April 2021. The digital edition of the issue is published online at Exact Editions and in the Wire app.
Online and Brussels Mill, Belgium 29|04|2021 – 02|05|2021
Four day festival in Brussels taking its name from radio pioneer Daphne Oram. The festival will also broadcast audio via its website regardless. Featuring talks, concerts and workshops from People Like Us, Catherine Lamb, Daphne Oram, Farida Amadou, Lucretia Dalt, Goodiepal & Pals, Áine O’Dwyer, Jessica Ekomane, Jonáš Gruska and Lukas De Clerck. Online and Brussels Mill, 29 April–2 May.
Here’s an interview conducted by Henry Andersen of Oscillation Festival Vicki Bennett about process.
People Like Us will have a special one hour audio mix broadcast on the radio, and you can watch The Mirror online via their website, for the entirety of the festival.
Welcome Abroad LP on Discrepant [CREP84] Releases 4th JUNE, 2021, taking pre-orders from 31st MARCH 2021 (digital download straight away and we send the LP as soon as we get them)
Discrepant Press Release: Continuing our ambitious People Like Us vinyl reissue program with Welcome Aboard – a strangely relevant 10-year-old album (originally released in May 2011 on Illegal Art) when People Like Us aka Vicki Bennett became stranded in the US after the Icelandic Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption closed much of northern Europe’s airspace.
Volcanically marooned in Baltimore and NYC, Bennett utilized some of her “free” time to work on the album and even gained audio contributions from fellow experimental musicians Jason Willett (of Half Japanese) and M.C. Schmidt (of Matmos) via her extended stay.
Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. Now strangely echoed by the Covid-19 outbreak and the various grounding of planes and stay at home policies worldwide.
While the general mashup culture often centres on the instant gratification of seamlessly juxtaposing hooks, People Like Us tracks transform the source material into collages that are equal parts dissonance and pleasure, making artful commentaries on our culture and Bennett’s own existential amusement within such a wondrous world. No one could have predicted how relevant this album would have been 10 years later.
LP TRACKLIST: A1. Sing A2. What Will I Do A3. Push The Clouds Away A4. The Sound Of The End Of Music A5. Wonderful Wonderful B1. Hush B2. Driving Flying Rising Falling B3. The Atlantic Conveyor B4. Wandering B5. Ever
This is the LP vinyl version with an instant mp3 download of the longer CD version of the album.
500 Units
Welcome Abroad is the soundtrack to a dream – overlaying a cabaret with the circus, a music hall with the radio, a nightclub with the movies. Finely tuned sounds from the collective unconscious, fitted together with care and clarity and skill, producing a hallucinatory landscape that shifts and slides, shimmering with each new sample. Julie Andrews duets with Jim Morrison? Damn.” – Steinski
Includes unlimited streaming of Welcome Abroad via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Yes, it’s true! People Like Us will be on the cover of the new edition of The Wire magazine, May 2021 edition, coming out in April. Inside you will find a career retrospective interview. If you cannot find The Wire in your local newsagents you can buy it here: https://www.thewire.co.uk/
“Different People” is an anthology of interviews by Swedish author Carl Abrahamsson, focusing on art, life and the creative process. Included are in-depth conversations with Conrad Rooks, Malcolm McLaren, Stelarc, John Duncan, Charles Gatewood, Mark McCloud, Ralph Metzner, Peter Beard, Bill Landis, Ralph Gibson, Maja Elliott, Michael Bowen, Bob Colacello, Dian Hanson, Anton Corbijn, June Newton, Kendell Geers, Simeon Coxe III (Silver Apples), Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), and Brian Williams (Lustmord). These groundbreaking artists, writers, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, editors and psychedelic researchers have all helped shape the culture we live in. But what makes them do what they do? Which are their driving forces and their inspirations; their joys and fears? Trapart Books, 2021, 6 x 9” paperback, illustrated with photographic portraits, 292 pages. https://store.trapart.net/details/00118
People Like Us host Aloha Fridays Friday, January 1st, 2021, 11am – 2pm on Aloha Fridays radio show (on Sheena’s Jungle Room Stream) Live Playlist: https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/99690 Join People Like Us who are hosting Aloha Fridays radio show for one week only… playing three hours of NICE THINGS on WFMU’s alt stream Sheena’s Jungle Room.
People Like Us have returned to the radio on WFMU for a 3-hour radio show from 9-Noon EST (that’s 2pm-5pm UK) for 4 CONSECUTIVE THURSDAYS filling in for DJ Trouble.
People Like Us and Porest were both due to perform live concerts at MAAT in Lisbon on 6 November but unfortunately because of the pandemic we will not be travelling. So instead our work will be screened in the gallery on the same date. Details above.
This is now cancelled because of the current global situation – more specifically because of the French month-long lockdown.
People Like Us will perform The Mirror at BBMix Festivalon Saturday 21 November 2020 at Carré Belle-feuille, Paris in the 3pm to 7pm portion of the festival. The festival has adjusted hours to allow for the curfew. / € 11
Tickets available in advance on the above link. Unlike most of our activities this year, we will be there in person performing it, so long as we are able at the time of travel (in accordance with the ongoing global situation). Please continue to check the festival website for updates.
