People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz “Rhapsody in Glue” album

Online-only album
Released 15 May 2008 through bleep.com PLURGO1

Following the success of the critically acclaimed “Perpetuum Mobile” CD of 2007, renowned UK collagists / composers People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz reunite for “Rhapsody in Glue”, a cycle of bricolage-ballet-music, skewed-waltzes, and skewiff-pop.
There is a story behind every album, and with “Rhapsody in Glue” we find a unique approach to constructing a record. Both long-term contributors to New York radio station WFMU, 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” is the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.

“Rhapsody in Glue” continues in the bizarre ballroom vein of their previous efforts together, however, increasing the sonic palette into textural depths previously uncharted in their work. If “Carmic Waltz” is an expressionist painting by aged ballroom dance teacher who’s eaten the wrong kind of mushrooms in her soufflé, then “Gary’s Anatomy” is a slice of pure absurdist pop shot through with slabs of exotica and Ethel Merman. Recurring through the record is an apparent obsession with Prokofiev’s “Troika (Sleigh Ride)”, which merges and mashes with Burt Bacharach and Queen on “Snow Day”‘ and lapses into pure fantasy on the almost entirely acoustic “Withers in the Whist”, jarring with Ergo’s strange, Victoriana obsessed lyrics. Then on “Dancing in the Carmen” we discover what happens if Nana Mouskouri is thrown into a pot with Peggy Lee and let simmer for 10 minutes, whilst “In The Waking” shimmers along on multitracked guitars, meandering melodies, and music boxes.

REVIEWS:
Rhapsody in Glue – Liability (March 2009)
Rhapsody In Glue review – Goute Mes Disques (November 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – Blow Up (September 2008)
Rhapsody In Glue review – Pop News (September 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – O Dominio Dos Deuses (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue/Smiling Through My Teeth Review – Incendiary Mag (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – Octopus (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – Skug (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – D-Side (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – Choices Cologne (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – The Wire (July 2008)
Rhapsody in Glue review – Titel-Magazin / CD of the Week (June 2008)

PLU and Ergo at SightSonic 2008

14-15 March 2008
People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz play SightSonic 2008
York International Festival of Digital Arts

We are pleased to People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz will be playing a double bill, both separately and also a rare duo performance as part of York International Festival of Digital Arts. This will take place at the National left for Early Music on Friday 14th March between 7.30pm and 9.30pm. More info and tickets available at the SightSonic website. On 15th March Vicki will also be doing an artist talk, also as part of the festival at York St John University (YSJU), in Fountains Lecture Theatre. The talk is scheduled for around 11.30am, and will last about an hour.

Excerpt here – Blame It On The Waltz (Live in York)

Exclusive Digital Single From People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz

Music To Run Fast By – 2008

plu+ergo

We are pleased to announce two brand new downloadable tracks from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, available to the web exclusively from WFMU’s Free Music Archive and Beware of the Blog. The Music to Run Fast By digital 7” is based around the idea of “The Chase”, where Vicki and Ergo sourced from and collaged as many fast moving sounds as they could possibly think of! This music was originally conceived for a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s film “Screen Play”, performed by WFMU’s delightful duo in London last year (link). It was then developed into “The Chase” episode of their “Codpaste” podcast on WFMU. Check out more very fast music from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz in the Codpaste archive at http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25405

Download the mp3s at the WFMU Blog
A Chase Posthaste (mp3)
Hot Suit in Hot Pursuit (mp3)

If you own a horse then do take this on your ipod next time you go out for a trot.

“Screen Play” by Christian Marclay, performed by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz

“I composed a silent collage of found film footage partially layered with computer graphics to provide a framework in which live music can develop. Moving images and graphics give musicians visual cues suggesting emotion, energy, rhythm, pitch, volume, and duration. I believe in the power of images to evoke sound.”
– Christian Marclay


By Christian Marclay

Trio I: Vicki Bennett, Ergo Phizmiz
Trio II: Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Roger Turner
Trio III: Blevin Blectum, J G Thirlwell

“Having combined excerpts from Hollywood films to cacophonous effect in previous work, Mr Marclay leapt back in film history, making a demonically spliced silent movie whose visually noisy pulsing black and white sequences were complicated by computer animations of bright, jumpy abstract dots, stripes and shapes reminiscent of work by John Baldessari. It was an extraordinary evening of looking and listening.”
Roberta Smith, The New York Times

Forming part of The Wire 25 anniversary celebrations marking 25 years of The Wire magazine and co-curated by Electra, London & New York based visual artist and composer Christian Marclay presented the UK premier of Screen Play, a moving image musical score in which found film footage is combined with computer animation to create a visual projection, to be interpreted by live musicians in an evening length performance.

In the tradition of graphic scores, Marclay designed a “video score” combining found footage and computer animation to be interpreted by three small groups of musicians, to initiate performances while leaving ample room for interpretation and improvisation. For the London performance, Marclay assembled three groups made up of a wide-ranging collective of musical talents, including Vicki Bennett, Ergo Phizmiz, Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Roger Turner, Blevin Blectum and J G Thirlwell.

Screen Play follows The Bell And The Glass, Marclay’s first experiment with the use of video projection to convey instructions to musicians, which was commissioned by the Reloche ensemble and performed at the Philadelphia Museum Of Art in 2003.

First, a pretty bad recording from the mixing desk of the concert…
People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz – Live Score to Christian Marclay’s Screen Play, Bush Hall, London

“I never heard it performed like THAT before…” – Christian Marclay

And then the raw tracks that People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz composed for the live score. You may notice that these experiments then went on to be developed in Codpaste, and then Rhapsody in Glue.

Beginning
Enya With Her Accordian
Honeysuckle Bollocks
Be My Baby Beat
Chase 1
Chase 2
Chase 3
Chase 4
Chase 5
Chase 6
Screen End
Screen End Opera
Fashionette by The Piccadilly Players

Codpaste podcast on WFMU

This is the archive page of People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz’s podcast “Codpaste”. Playlists and archives can be accessed indefinitely at http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/CT.  The album Rhapsody in Glue is now available for FREE download at UbuWeb.


Please read on…

Episode 1 – 3rd December 2007 – Cartoon Music

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25395
Vicki and Ergo ride their little bicycles with square wheels and honky hooters and tell you about their love of this funny music. Features, amongst others, the music of Carl Stalling, Roger Roger and BBC Radiophonic Workshop, all collaged with conversation and ridiculously pointless repetitions.

Episode 2 – 10th December 2007 – The Chase

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25405
Ergo and Vicki show you how fast they can juggle without dropping everything, or at least make very fast music. They play you some of their very favourite speedy rhythms, generally all at the same time, then when it’s finished they start it all over again. Features amongst others, different versions of William Tell Overture and Hungarian Rhapsody, and also the misc of Spike Jones, The Comedian Harmonists and Offenbach.

Episode 3 – 17th December 2007 – Hooked On Classics

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25406
In which Vicki and Ergo revisit the 1970’s phenomenon of Hooked On Classics, classical cover versions as well as all things light, orchestral and popular. Features a medley of the best of this fine mulch of classical music with a disco beat, as well as some tangential visits to the world of amateur orchestras. Features Portsmouth Sinfonia, The Swingle Singers, John Oswald and Wendy Carlos, amongst others.

Episode 4 – 24th December 2007 – ThEdit

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25429
All about the wonderful world of editing and cutting up of sounds. Ergo and Vicki talk about their favourite editors of life, and demonstrate how one can mess up sound so easily and to such good effect. Features the work of William Burroughs, Negativland, Language Removal Services and cut ups of BBC Radio.

Episode 5 – 31st December 2007 – Fwms Bo Wo

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25530
Features some of the best explorers of sound poetry, and general transformers of the spoken word. Is this nonsense? Is it music? Are we serious? Ultimately we don’t know but we really enjoy it, and this is a fun introduction to a kind of audio art that all too often is alienating. Features, amongst others, the work of Jaap Blonk, Leif Elggren & Thomas Liljenberg, Christian Bok and Stanley Unwin.

Episode 6 – 7th January 2008 – Snow Day

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25533
People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz examine their obsessions with the classical piece Troika (Sleigh Ride), Queen, Rod McKuen and songs about the weather, plus Vicki tries to mix Mrs Miller with B.J.Thomas and wonders why it didn’t turn out too well.

Episode 7 – 14th January 2008 – Banjos, Pots, Pans and Squeezeboxes


http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25819
In which Vicki and Ergo discuss the combination of sampling, live instrumentation and voices. Features Wendy Carlos, Sun Ra and Esquivel, amongst others.

Episode 8 – 21st January 2008 – Collage

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25942
When does it stop being completely isolated from the rest of the universe and step into the world of collage, adding another patch to the huge quilt of sounds that have gone before? People Like Us “start at the very beginning” and try to find out. Features sounds from Noah Creshevsky, DJ Earlybird, Brion Gysin and Kid Koala, amongst many others.

Episode 9 – 28th January 2008 – I Can’t Tell A Waltz From A Tango

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25966
Can you? Vicki and Ergo offer a masterclass in the key of E Minor on all things that you can’t dance to. Features the swinging sounds of Percy Faith, Charles Barlow & His Orchestra, Johann Strauss II and Ferrante & Teicher.

Episode 10 – 4th February 2008 – Nana Mouskouri

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25655
Why on earth is it called this? Well, this episode is all about those themes and songs that are just so catchy that we just keep returning to them. Includes such delights as Bert Kaempfert, Lenny Dee, The Swingle Singers, The Comedian Harmonists, and of course Nana Mouskouri.

Episode 11 – 11th February 2008 – Sing Song

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/25970
In which Ms. Us and Mr. Phizmiz play all their favourite songs and think about how artists fit in with the world of popular music, almost by accident at times. Features, amongst others, the fabulous works of Noel Coward, Winifred Atwell, The Ronettes and Xper. Xr.

Episode 12 – 18th February 2008 – Comedy

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26276
Funny ha ha or funny peculiar, either way, we love that music with a sense of humour, a sense of the surreal and absurd. Vicki and Ergo reflect on the aftermath of chancing a visit to a village hall full of leaping lederhosen. Listen to, amongst others, Mary Schneider, Liszt, The Goons and a bunch of WFMU DJs.

Episode 13 – 10th March 2008 – Easy Listening

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26488
No, don’t switch off, you like it really, don’t you. Easy Listening, it’s nice. Hear the beautiful noises of Glen Campbell, Esquivel, Nelson Riddle and Martin Denny.

Episode 14 – 17th March 2008 – Finale

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/26515 – and at the WFMU blog
The final podcast of Codpaste – a 96 minute mix of the best of the show, which when we play it back, we’re quite amazed at how much we fitted into this series in such a short space of time.

What it’s all about

“Codpaste” is a weekly podcast series in which the two artists People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz will attempt to compose collage music from the very beginning, in a “work in progress” style, attempting to open up the creative process.  The theory is that it is rare to see compositions made from the outset, and usually the audience are only invited in once the piece is finished, done and dusted. It could be that new light may be shed on the creation of art if the curtains are opened and the audience are given access to the raw, the imperfect and the wrong as well as the polished and the finished. This is what we hope anyway!

From 3rd December 2007 WFMU will be hosting the podcasts of: (i) audio sources, the tracks used as the basis for the collage in the episode, (ii) sketches, mixes and collages combining track’s elements, with added instrumentation, electronics, vocals, etc, and (iii) fragments, layers, and multitracks of the collage compositions.  These elements will be tied together by snippets of light-hearted, tangential conversations and introductions and occasional mental overload and verbal meltdown.

The previous collaboration “Boots!” experimented with combining free digital downloading with more traditional formats and forms of distribution (record and CD through record stores), and came to the conclusion that the “gift economy” does work – with evidence of increased mail order sales and reports from stores hosting the record that customers also bought things at the same time.  As a result, we will compile these weekly programmes into a mp3 album of the same name (“Codpaste”), taking selections of the free podcasts, shaping them into a finished pod-album format, for sale on iTunes. Once the project is completed, all elements will be hosted in perpetuum at WFMU’s Free Music Archive, allowing the good work to continue once the artists are done with it!

It is a rare and new thing to be making work-in-progress in front of an audience – and hopefully will prove to be both fun and an inspiration for artist and listener (and ultimately listener as remixer), and a vital exploration of unique ways of making work in a market more than saturated with products.

Background on the collaboration

Since 2002 People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz have collaborated on a number of compositional projects; including a radio show, two albums and two live performances; “Boots!” and “Screen Play”.  “Screen Play” was a live soundtrack for Christian Marclay’s film of the same name, performed as part of the Wire 25 celebrations in London in November 2007. “Boots!”, a year-long project (2006-2007), was presented online as a free downloadable 5-hour long archive (at UbuWeb), including compositional elements dissected into component parts, demonstrating creative processes that led to finished works, making it remixable by downloader.  The project received radio play on BBC Radio, Channel 4 Radio – plus 450 subscribers to our subsequent 10″ record – “Honeysuckle Boulevard”, and an additional 200 who were too late to participate.

You can subscribe to People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz’s other solo podcasts, also on WFMU, at DO or DIY with People Like Us and The Phuj Phactory with Ergo Phizmiz.

Codpaste timeline

July 2007 – So it begins: collecting sound sources and visual material, discussing structure, audio collaboration begins
The simultaneous collecting and making of work.  The podcasts will to go out as the artists are making the work, so that the outlet is time sensitive to the creation.  The creating and outputting will be going on throughout the following stages until completion in March 2008.

3rd December 2007 – Weekly podcasts begin on WFMU
A weekly podcast will go out at the same time each week – subscribe through http://wfmu.org/podcast, with playlists and other information added both on this website and also http://wfmu.org/playlists/CT

March 2008 – Develop the material into an album
The artists will steer the collaborative material in the direction of it being collated in “album” form.  So in other words, this timeline contains a number of simultaneous and overlapping events – the making of material, outputting and collating.

May 2008 – Releasing the album plus hosting elements on WFMU’s Free Music Archive
The album, entitled “Rhapsody in Glue” is now available at bleep.com! Watch this space for bonus tracks which will be hosted at WFMU’s Free Music Archive shortly!

15 May 2008 – Rhapsody in Glue – digital album release

Following the success of the critically acclaimed “Perpetuum Mobile” CD of 2007, renowned UK collagists / composers People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz reunite for “Rhapsody in Glue”, a cycle of bricolage-ballet-music, skewed-waltzes, and skewiff-pop.
There is a story behind every album, and with “Rhapsody in Glue” we find a unique approach to constructing a record. Both long-term contributors to New York radio station WFMU, 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” is the culmination of the ideas explored in the podcast series.

“Rhapsody in Glue” continues in the bizarre ballroom vein of their previous efforts together, however, increasing the sonic palette into textural depths previously uncharted in their work. If “Carmic Waltz” is an expressionist painting by aged ballroom dance teacher who’s eaten the wrong kind of mushrooms in her soufflé, then “Gary’s Anatomy” is a slice of pure absurdist pop shot through with slabs of exotica and Ethel Merman. Recurring through the record is an apparent obsession with Prokofiev’s “Troika (Sleigh Ride)”, which merges and mashes with Burt Bacharach and Queen on “Snow Day”‘ and lapses into pure fantasy on the almost entirely acoustic “Withers in the Whist”, jarring with Ergo’s strange, Victoriana obsessed lyrics. Then on “Dancing in the Carmen” we discover what happens if Nana Mouskouri is thrown into a pot with Peggy Lee and let simmer for 10 minutes, whilst “In The Waking” shimmers along on multitracked guitars, meandering melodies, and music boxes.

Rhapsody in Glue is available exclusively at budget price from http://www.bleep.com


3 June 2008 – Digital Single derived from Codpaste on the WFMU Blog

We are pleased to announce two brand new downloadable tracks from People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, available to the web exclusively from WFMU’s Free Music Archive and Beware of the Blog. The Music to Run Fast By digital 7” is based around the idea of “The Chase”, where Vicki and Ergo sourced from and collaged as many fast moving sounds as they could possibly think of! This music was originally conceived for a live soundtrack to Christian Marclay’s film “Screen Play“, performed by WFMU’s delightful duo in London last year. It was then developed into “The Chase” episode of their “Codpaste” podcast on WFMU.

If you own a horse then do take this on your ipod next time you go out for a trot.
Download the mp3s at the WFMU Blog or at UbuWeb

Teaching Pack

We have produced a teaching pack to accompany the Codpaste series, in pdf form. Don’t forget you don’t need to subscribe now the series is over – just go to http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/CT to listen along with this!
Download the pdf here (30mb)
Creative Commons License
Codpaste – Peaching Tack by People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at www.peoplelikeus.org/piccies/codpaste/codpaste-teachingpack.pdf

This project is supported by Arts Council England and WFMU.

click on thumbnails for larger downloads ONLY use for joint advertisements for both artists

Perpetuum Mobile CD

Released 23 April 2007 on Soleilmoon Recordings
SOL156 CD (now deleted)
download at ubuweb

“Perpetuum Mobile” is the result of a uniquely schizophrenic “open source” compositional process: the UK’s finest collage composers Ergo Phizmiz and People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett) uploaded files to a shared server, downloaded and processed each other’s work, and flung the resulting fragments back at each other. The result is an interpenetrating audio-collage so intricate that neither party can recall who did what to whom. So far, so avant-garde; but what makes this record different is that Ergo and Vicki then wrote and sang their own vocals on top of their Frankenstein creation. Here you will find slyly absurdist lyrics replete with monkeys, carousels, trousers, apple trees, tinkling bells, dogs, sausages, whiskey, and cannibalism. No matter how fraught with trauma, these ballads and ditties are sung with a straight face and mixed front and left, and the results feel like 1930s British music hall standards from an alternate universe: half Ivor Cutler, half George Formby. The astonishing thing is that for all this jiggery-pokery, “Perpetuum Mobile” makes for an exhilarating, remarkably fresh pop album. It works. On “Ghosts Before Breakfast” Ergo and Vicki proudly declare that they’ve got “quite a selection of pastry”, and if the profusion of cuckoo clocks, gunshots, horn farts, string vamps, and digital malfeasance which go hurtling through this opening track is any indication, that’s no idle boast. For sheer cornucopia of sonic raw materials, this track’s avalanche of information sets the tone for the overflowing, manic record that follows. There’s far too much to fully parse, but among the highlights: “Beyond Perpetuum” pushes off from the Comedian Harmonists’ take on the 19th century compositional craze for “moto perpetuo” runs of continuous notes at a rapid tempo, and folds found piano, voice and strings into an interlocking array of M.C. Escher harmonic stairways. “Air Hostess” is detourned lounge pop that stitches together Nelson Riddle’s “Ya Ya” theme to “Lolita”, “Walk Right In”, light operettas, organ, bachelor pad cha cha and mambo, and nervously twitching shards of Louis Armstrong. “Pierrot’s Persecution Mania” bravely explores the possibilities of a Montparnasse-via-Dixieland hybrid of can-can and bluegrass, with ridiculous canned strings colliding with jew’s harp boings, while “Soggy Style” rides banjo twangs, a digital bossa nova breakdown, and the “whooo-ooes” nicked from Terry Stafford’s “Suspicion”. Living up to the perpetual motion of its title and cock-a-hoop cover art, this is a frantically energetic music whose layered repetitions become cumulatively more disorienting and preposterous as they loop back. “Perpetuum Mobile” goes beyond the stealth-oldies nostalgia of the mashup scene and the “culture-jamming” rhetoric of plunderphonics, and shows Mr. Ergo and Ms. Vicki to be a potent, if Surrealist, songwriting team, and together they braid oddly affecting vocals and their trademark stolen audio into twenty-first century pop. Like the perpetual motion machines for which it is named, this collaboration will run and run and run and run and run and run and run . . . – Drew Daniel

Scans of reviews here:
Perpetuum Mobile Music For Maniacs (October 2007)
Perpetuum Mobile – Geiger (September 2007)
Perpetuum Mobile – Bad Alchemy (August 2007)

Perpetuum Mobile – Brainwashed (June 2007)
Perpetuum Mobile – RifRaf (June 2007)
Perpetuum Mobile – Rolling Stone (Mexico!!) June 2007
Perpetuum Mobile – Review in Norman Records June 2007

Perpetuum Mobile – Review in Jumbo June 2007

Perpetuum Mobile – Review in Loop June 2007
Perpetuum Mobile – Review in Boomkat June 2007
Perpetuum Mobile – Review in Cologne Choices June 2007

Honeysuckle Boulevard

The online edition of People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz’s album, “Honeysuckle Boulevard”, which came out at the beginning of 2007 as a free ten inch vinyl release and is now deleted, can now be downloaded for free here, and at the WFMU Blog here. It includes vinyl label artwork, an info text file and also two bonus tracks. The bonus tracks have never before been made available for release or download. If you love vinyl we have a few on sale in our shop, by way of Paypal – price includes Postage and Packing.

Download the audio either as a zip file containing all the tracks, or grab each individual MP3.

Honeysuckle Boulevard (Zip File, contains all files below)

MP3 Tracks:

Side A, Harpo Honeysuckle Suite
A1: Harpo Boulevard
A2: Beyond Perpetuum
A3: Honeysuckle Rose and Perpetuum Mobile

Side B, Merry Go Mambo Suite

B1: Merry Go-Round
B2: Fat Henry’s Mambo
B3: Oh No Not Another Cha Cha

Extras:
Bonus Track 1: Bad Restaurant Boogie
Bonus Track 2: Social Folk Dance

Album Label Artwork
Informational Text File

Ergo Phizmiz website
WFMU website

For more background information on this project, please read on.
Honeysuckle Boulevard, a self-released 10 inch record (Limited Edition 500 numbered copies) was available from selected record stores/galleries (in exchange for a voucher)
from January 15th-March 31st 2007. This offer is now expired (although we have a few copies for sale in our shop for a very cheap price)

Archived press release (January 2007):

This is the debut collaborative release by artists People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz, available for free at selected galleries and independent record stores in the UK, the continent and US.

Both artists operate on the cusp of both experimental and pop culture, creating radio, audio and DVD releases, film and A/V multimedia.  Their work combines an irreverent approach with a probing curiosity that explores crossover points between media.  By appropriating and recontextualising found footage, they craft collage with equal inflections of wit and impending doom.

This record presents a progressive change for both artists involved.  It references their past works, but moves into new territory, resulting in a very collaborative work, much more than the sum of two parts.  The music is fundamentally electronic (but not usually sounding so), with references to 1920’s ballroom music, 1950’s easy listening, jazz, cartoon and classical music, seamlessly melding diverse elements into a dynamic, rhythmic patchwork.  They combine appropriation with live instrumentation and vocals, with very open tangential musical structures.  With nonsense lyrics that are equally Brothers Grimm and Edward Lear and accompanying slapstick interjections, the result is in an exciting and humorous work.

Recent works include Ergo Phizmiz’s large-scale piece “M: 1000 Year Mix” funded by the Arts Council of England/Match My Foot Records, and “Wholepole – The Discotheque of Erotic Misery” for BBC Radio 3.  People Like Us recently released the album “All Together Now”, and is also Artist in Residence at the BBC Creative Archive.  Both artists are currently collaborating on a full length CD release entitled “Perpetuum Mobile”, to be released in April 2007 on Soleilmoon Recordings.  In addition, both artists broadcast experimental arts shows on the freeform New York radio/internet station WFMU.

This product will be available in the following stores from January 15th to March 31st 2007.
A-Musik (Cologne)
Aquarius (San Francisco)
Bimbo Tower (Paris)
Earwax (Brooklyn)
Le Bonheur (Brussels)
Matéria Prima (Porto)
Monorail (Glasgow)
Rough Trade, Neal’s Yard (London)
Tate Modern (London)
Worm (Rotterdam)

A uniquely labelled voucher (one per person – all IP addresses are logged) can be requested by filling in the form below, and specifying which of the above stores the customer would like to collect from.  Once you have sent your request we ask that you be patient, you will hear from us with a voucher shortly before 15th January, or if you order after this date then very soon.

This venture is totally non-profit, for artists and retailer, and has been met with great enthusiasm from the host stores.  In fact the demand from additional stores that wish to participate exceeded the amount of records that can be supplied.

The marketing aspect of this project is partly a humorous self-parody, in that both artists have favoured the internet as their primary means of distribution and now are encouraging people to go into real shops again and “buy” their music for free.  This novelty form of distribution combines the tradition of regular shopping with free downloading, stretching the notion of the “gift economy” to its limits.  “Below the radar” artists have difficulty with physical distribution of their work because of the poor state of business for non-chart releases combined with saturation of the market.  However, this isn’t a reflection of a lack of audience interest; People Like Us’ album “Abridged Too Far” and Ergo Phizmiz’s “White Light White Heat” have collectively amassed in excess of 50,000 mp3 downloads, so there is no shortage of audience to be testing these theories on.
honeysuckle

PRESS PICTURES
(click
on thumbnails)

 

 

 

Boots!

Using the internet and file sharing as our primary means of communication and collaboration, People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz have produced this material over a period of almost a year (Spring-Winter 2006-7).

These recordings document a collaborative research and development process using live performance (with vintage dansette turntables and vinyl dubplates), a CDr album ("Boots!"), a 10" vinyl record ("Honeysuckle Boulevard"), and a CD album ("Perpetuum Mobile").The files available here constitute the research, CDr, and the live performance. The concert is represented by an edit from that which was recorded through the mixing desk and miked up record players, a full unedited microphone recording, and an archive of the tracks which were used on the vinyl dubplates – comprising music from the research period split across various records either through splits in time (so one minute of the track may play on one deck, the next three minutes on another player, etc) or through splits in the actual layers on the tracks (so two or more records playing simultaneously would create the "full" track).

boots!

Concert – video edit

Sketches For Boots
Summer 2006

Composed 2006 as R+D for live performance, CD, Honeysuckle Boulevard 10″ Record, and Perpetuum Mobile CD (released 23 April 2007).
1. Domino
2. La Ronde
3. Erotic Ballroom Dream of Bill
4. Last Tango in Parish – Cumshot
5. Bloody Waltz
6. A Cup of Cha Cha Cha
7. Honeysuckle Roads
8. Let’s Dance with Charlie’s Loop
9. Mack
10. Puppet
11. Roy Fucks
12. Singing Lesson
13. Song For Babs
14. Sorry
15. Perpetuum (First Try)
16. Fruity Peter
17. Bed Music (Boopy Doop Doop Scoop)
18. Honeysuckle Ideas
19. Last Tango in Parish
20. Air Hostess
21. Balromulus Machinus
22. Spanked Latin
23. Tiny Mambo
24. Mambobela Rmx with Felix Kubin
info.txt

Dubplates from “Boots!” Performance
Summer 2006

In which tracks from research are torn apart for live recomposition, then pressed to vinyl dubplates
1. Crying Man
2. Enoch the Drummer 01
3. Enoch the Drummer 02
4. Fat Henry’s Mambo 01
5. Fat Henry’s Mambo 02
6. Gunshot 01
7. Gunshot 02
8. Harpo’s Ambient Love Groove
9. Harpo Boulevard 01
10. Harpo Boulevard 02
11. Harpo Segue
12. Hollers 01
13. Hollers 02
14. Hollers 03
15. Hollers 04
16. Hollers 05
17. Hollers 06
18. Honeysuckle Rose & Perpetuum Mobile 01
19. Honeysuckle Rose & Perpetuum Mobile 02
20. Honks
21. Instruments of the Orchestra 01
22. Instruments of the Orchestra 02
23. Instruments of the Orchestra 03
24. Instruments of the Orchestra 04
25. Mack The What 01
26. Mack the What 02
27. Merry Go Loop
28. Merry Go Round 01
29. Merry Go Round 02
30. Oh No Not Another Cha Cha 01
31. Oh No Not Another Cha Cha 02
32. Oh No Not Another Cha Cha Segue
33. Parp 01
34. Parp 02
35. Parp 03
36. Perpetuum Mobile 01
37. Perpetuum Mobile 02
38. Sad Waltz Because His Dog Died – Solo Flute
39. Sad Waltz Because His Dog Died – Solo Sax 01
40. Sad Waltz Because His Dog Died – Solo Sax 02
41. Sad Waltz Because His Dog Died
42. Singing Lesson A
43. Singing Lesson B
44. Singing Lesson Solo 01
45. Singing Lesson Solo 02
46. Sit Well Back 01
47. Sit Well Back 02
48. Sorry 01
49. Sorry 02
50. Sorry Extra
51. Stalling Samples 01
52. Stalling Samples 02
53. Stalling Samples 03
54. Stalling Samples 04
55. Stalling Samples 05
56. Stalling Samples 06
57. Stalling Samples 07
58. Stalling Samples 08
59. Stalling Samples 09
60. Stalling Samples 10
61. Stan’s Voice
62. Tango & Leer 01
63. Tango & Leer 02
64. Valse For Lydia 01
65. Valse For Lydia 02
info.txt
Saxophone by Ben Whiting-Wilbee www.myspace.com/benwilbee
Flute by Heather McCallum www.myspace.com/coo6B

Boots! Live
Summer 2006

1. Sit Well Back
2. Sorry
3. Merry Go Round
4. Perpetuum Mobile
5. Tango and Leer
6. Harpo Boulevard
7. Mack the What
8. Sad Waltz Because His Dog Died
9. Enoch the Drummer
10. Fat Henry Perpetually Spanked
11. Oh No Not Another Cha Cha Cha
12. Boots! – Full microphone recording
info.txt
Recorded live at Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight, June 2006
Performed on Dansette Record players and vinyl dubplates, with piano, euphonium, horn, and accordian.
Track 12 “Full Microphone Recording” recorded by Simon Perry www.ventnorblog.com
Setlist Images : images/People-Like-Us-+-Ergo-Phizmiz_Boots_Setlist_2006.zip
Concert Images : images/People-Like-Us-+-Ergo-Phizmiz_Boots_Concert_Pictures_2006.zip

Boots! CD
Summer 2006

1. Sit Well Back
2. Fat Henry’s Mambo
3. Merry Go Round
4. Tango and Leer
5. Harpo Boulevard
6. Mack the What
7. Enoch the Drummer
8. Honeysuckle Rose & Perpetuum Mobile
9. Sad Waltz Because His Dog Died
All tracks given away on limited CD at “Boots!” Live performance, Isle of Wight, June 2006

Artwork : images/People-Like-Us-+-Ergo-Phizmiz_Boots_CDR_Artwork_2006.zip
Ergo Phizmiz website
UbuWeb (many thanks!)
In case you were wondering why this project is called “Boots” we really couldn’t remember for a while (good eh), but then recalled it’s the dancing boots graphic that we named it after. Not Boots the Chemist.

Continue reading “Boots!”

Windpipe Moods

“Ne Me” features on a compilation CD compiled by Ergo Phizmiz, released on his label, Mukow.

The album also features contributions from Joerg Piringer, Ergo Phizmiz, Sebastien Lespinasse, People Like Us, Ambrosia Rasputin, Language Removal Services, Unit_Bath & Keiji Ito, Jaap Blonk, Sue Tompkins, Irene Moon & Sara O’Keefe, Zenith Pitts, Tomomi Adachi, C. Spencer-Yeh, Martha Moopette, Penn Kemp & Anne Anglin, Erik Belgum, and Langston Henry.
Ne Me

Download the whole album here:

windpipe moods

People Like Us & Ergo Phizmiz – Xmas Special

DO or DIY Xmas Special on WFMU with special guest Ergo Phizmiz

Tis the season not only of Good Will, but also of Irritainment Music – but we don’t agree that all Xmas music is bad! So just to illustrate the point, here is a chance to not only hear but download the Xmas edition of DO or DIY with People Like Us from 2003, with Special Guest and now WFMU DJ, Ergo Phizmiz! Pour yourself a nice drinky and careful you don’t crack your nuts. Wishing you a pleasant Xmess!

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2006/12/DO_or_DIY_with_People_Like_Us_Xmas_Special.mp3

Gongexeva

People Like Us have contributed to Gongexeva (CD) – which includes mixes by Ergo Phizmiz, Xper. Xr. and People Like Us). Released on Mukow, 2003 – it features sound-collages based around sacred music from around the world.
Gongexeva
Mukow website
gongexeva