The Mirror on Vinyl!

Courtesy of our friends Discrepant, our album The Mirror is now out on vinyl!
Buy direct from us through bandcamp
Click on the link below and scroll to “The Mirror Vinyl LP” in the left hand column and click on that to buy. Shipping date is expected for 18 October 2019.
Includes digital album of The Mirror.
Also available on CD from the same bandcamp page.

No.8 in The Wire Magazine’s releases of 2019
Cover art for The Mirror by People Like Us

Tracks on the vinyl version of The Mirror:
A1 The Mirror
A2 Do You See What I Hear
A3 Step Inside
B1 Free My Prayer
B2 The Other Side
B3 Forever
B4 Till The End of Time


Previously released on CD accompanied by “Gone, Gone Beyond”, “The Mirror” is the dreamy soundtrack of an a/v project from collage artist extraordinaire Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. With ‘’The Mirror’’ Bennett continues her eternal disassembling of popular music by exploring how the narrative of familiar sounds/songs can change dramatically under a new context, with that context always changing, in a never-ending flow. Each song is singular. And each song is a collage of and undefined number of other songs from other artists. It sounds familiar because that has been the modus operandi of People Like Us since the early 1990s. But “The Mirror” plays with the notion of familiar, driving around a collection of famous pop songs/artists, messing around with the memory of the listener and, of course, his unique comprehension of those specific songs applied in a new context. Because of the use of familiar pop sounds, “The Mirror” is often grandiose. Like an epic film only with highs, never letting the listener down or letting him doubt the power of pop. Even, of course, when the coordinates are twisted, mixed, over or underrepresented. Each moment feels like something that could only happen in a parallel universe. Although that may sound naïve, it’s just a lost thought of reaction to the beautiful collages of People Like Us in “The Mirror”. This mirror doesn’t reflect an image of ourselves or an image of pop. But an image on the way memories drift and are being constant rebuilt. An unfinished collage. — Discrepant

Pressing Information
One time pressing of 500 units
Mastered by Mark Gergis
Cut by Rashad Becker

Recyclopaedia Britannica cassette

Discrepant Sucata Tapes (CS72) SUC19
On Pre-Order. Shipping mid-October 2018

Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us returns to Sucata Tapes with another epic radio collage from the archives.  You can buy the cassette (with a digital download included from us or Discrepant, and if you want just the digital download then get direct form Discrepant.

BUY HERE ON BANDCAMP

“The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy handedly “topical” audio-jokes at the expense of one’s raw material to a smug effect. If the lounge creeps uncritically snack on their sonic ingredients and coast on being “groovy”, the cads of pseudo-critique take cheap shots at straw men and call it subversion. Happily, Vicki Bennett has yet to fall down either precipice, but yodels down contentedly from her own Alpine audio-cottage. There, with loving care, she snips and tucks at the lycra jumpsuit until the fit is snug, places every plastic shrub on the Happy Valley Ranch just so, and throws another dance record on the bonfire. Undercutting her own utopian mirages with formal breakdowns and sneaky semantic pranks, Vicki Bennett is One Funny Lady, with a deadly sense of comic timing that puts her in my personal pantheon of edit intensive music makers: -Steinski and Mass Media, Hank Shocklee, Tod Dockstader, Teo Macero, the Hanatarash, John Oswald, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock. Serving her birthday cake with a turd, her gags are always lined with a virulent creep factor. You get the feeling that the vacancy and pointlessness of empty speech is being lampooned and mourned in equal measure. In sticking to this balance of celebration and critique, People Like Us genuinely hates and loves People Like You. The least you can do is head up to the Happy Valley Ranch for a spell and have a listen.” – Drew Daniel 

The Mirror at Cafe Oto, London

FRIDAY 20 APRIL 2018, 7.30PM at CAFE OTO, LONDON
POREST + PEOPLE LIKE US + KINK GONG
£15 £13 (WEGOTTICKETS)


On 20 April 2018, People Like Us will be presenting the London premiere of The Mirror as part of a two-day Discrepant label residency at London’s Cafe Oto.  Also on the bill, our old friends Porest, and also Kink Gong. The excellent Discrepant record label celebrates its seventh anniversary with a diverse and vital cross section of artists from the roster. www.discrepant.net

PLU / MATMOS / WOBBLY Wide Open Spaces now on VINYL

People Like Us / Matmos / Wobbly “Wide Open Spaces” LP (CREP52)
Release Date: 23rd February 2018 (taking pre-orders now)
Discrepant is pleased to announce the reissue of a “Wide Open Spaces”, a collaborative LP by Wobbly, People Like Us and Matmos.

You can purchase directly from us through our bandcamp site:

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/people-like-us-matmos-wobbly-wide-open-spaces

New Split Vinyl LP Release! People Like Us / Porest

On Discrepant
PEOPLE LIKE US & POREST – OPTIMIZED! [CREP49]
People Like Us “All On A Beautiful Day”

Porest “The Parallel Broadcasts”
Shipping November 2017

You can purchase direct from our bandcamp page:

https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/people-like-us-porest-optimized

The Parallel Broadcasts presents Porest’s recordings from the covert sector of his archives. Culled from shortwave and FM broadcasts, these selections were intercepted via prepared radio – finely tuned to receive what is known in certain circles as parallel broadcasting. Content explores the trauma of emerging global consciousness, acute cultural antipology and the urgent placement of democratic music today.
Recorded on location in Jan/Feb, 2016 – Featuring contributions from Paul Staufenbiel and Michael Darr

All On A Beautiful Day was recorded in Spring 2016 by People Like Us for “Optimized!” – a week-long online a/v radio station programmed by Vicki Bennett, housed on WFMU.org which experimented with ideas of what radio might be in the world of high speed internet broadcasting. The content included 26 new a/v artist works, including both this and Porest’s Parallel Broadcasts, where people were invited to respond to the word “optimized”.

  • A – All on a Beautiful Day
  • AA – The Parallel Broadcasts

Early Radio Works Vol. I – New Cassette Release

We are very pleased to let you know that we have another release on the wonderful label Discrepant.  Brave new old work by Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us. A journey into her early radio experiments with some dating back 20 years!

Vicki Bennett’s People Like Us began life as a three hour radio show on Brighton’s Festival Radio in 1990 called Gobstopper. She went on to release around 20 solo albums based on her radio sound collages, and after a decade working primarily with sound, has increasingly worked with film and images. She has recently produced collage and multi-screen, multi-speaker work, including 2013’s touring film and performance piece Notations, a film used as a score for improvising musicians, and Gone, Gone Beyond (2017++), a 10 screen, 8 speaker immersive cinema work for Recombinant Media Lab’s CineChamber.

Continue reading “Early Radio Works Vol. I – New Cassette Release”

Abridged Too Far album now on Vinyl on Discrepant

PEOPLE LIKE US – ABRIDGED TOO FAR [Discrepant LP CREP41]
Release date 31st March 2017 – available now!

ABRIDGED TOO FAR is the first of a series of vinyl by Discrepant to celebrate this being the 25th year of People Like Us publishing albums. First released in digital-only form in 2004 exclusively for UbuWeb, this album includes Vicki’s John Peel session and performances for WFMU, amongst others, both from 2003, and now comes packaged with brand new artwork designed by Vicki Bennett.

People Like Us LP launch at Cafe Oto

DISCREPANT PRESENTS: PEOPLE LIKE US, MIKE COOPER + TYPHONIAN HIGHLIFE (SPENCER CLARK) at CAFE OTO, LONDON
TUESDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2017, Doors open 7.30PM
£12 (door) £10 ADVANCE £8 CAFE OTO MEMBERS

People Like Us will perform at Cafe Oto in February as part of an evening hosted by the label Discrepant, to celebrate the release of LPs by People Like Us, and Mike Cooper. People Like Us will be doing a combination from four different previous performances, commencing at approximately 8.30pm. Full listing here.

Abridged Too Far” is the first of a series of vinyl by Discrepant to celebrate this being the 25th year of People Like Us publishing albums.  It has only ever been available in digital form on UbuWeb.

The LP pressing has been held up at the pressing plant and will not be ready for the concert, but you can pre-order direct from us NOW: https://peoplelikeus.org/2017/abridged-too-far-album-now-vinyl/

OR… IF you come to the concert you can fill in your email address at the merchandise table to exclusively purchase Abridged Too Far for £10. This is exclusive to this concert only.  The Mike Cooper album is already available on Discrepant’s site.