Welcome Abroad on vinyl!

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)

We’re taking orders for Welcome Abroad on vinyl!  Official release date 4th June. 
https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/album/welcome-abroad

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.

UbuWeb new addition: Welcome Abroad

Another People Like Us album now available for free download over at UbuWeb:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_welcome.html

Welcome Abroad {2011)

  1. Sing
  2. Happy Lost Songs
  3. Stuck in the USSR
  4. The Look
  5. Help Me To Help Myself
  6. What Will I Do
  7. Lost In The Dark
  8. Push The Clouds Away
  9. The Sound Of The End Of Music
  10. Wonderful Wonderful
  11. Driving Flying Rising Falling
  12. Ever
  13. Hush
  14. Wandering
  15. The Seven Hills of Rome (with Ergo Phizmiz)
  16. You’ve Got To Know When
  17. The Atlantic Conveyor

Release date: 24 May 2011
Illegal Art IA124 http://www.illegalart.net

Press release

“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

Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland’s airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. 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.

Taking a glance at just a few tracks from Welcome Abroad, songs from The Beatles, Ennio Morricone, Danny Kaye, Bob Dylan, Rod McKuen, Elton John, Gene Pitney, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, John Denver, Julie London, and Queen are all amalgamated.  While recent mashup culture often centers 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.

Thanks to Ergo Phizmiz, Jason Willett, M.C.Schmidt (Matmos), Virginia Pipe and Wobbly for contributing instruments, audio parts and multitracking to this album.

Lyrics on The Seven Hills of Rome by Ergo Phizmiz.

Some of the tracks listed above also have a moving image representation in People Like Us in UbuWeb Film

RELATED RESOURCES:

Ergo Phizmiz in UbuWeb Sound
Jon Leidecker (Wobbly) in UbuWeb Sound
People Like Us in UbuWeb Film

“Welcome Abroad” – People Like Us (Illegal Art 2011)

“Welcome Abroad” by People Like Us
Release date: 24 May 2011
Illegal Art IA124 http://www.illegalart.net

UK – price including P&P: $11.00
Buy in UK

EUROPE – price including P&P: $12.00

Buy in rest of Europe

ELSEWHERE – price including P&P: $13.00
Buy in rest of world

“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

Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland’s airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. 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.

Taking a glance at just a few tracks from Welcome Abroad, songs from The Beatles, Ennio Morricone, Danny Kaye, Bob Dylan, Rod McKuen, Elton John, Gene Pitney, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, John Denver, Julie London, and Queen are all amalgamated.  While recent mashup culture often centers 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.

With the release of Welcome Abroad, lllegal Art continues to embrace a pay-what-you-want business model for high-quality downloads. All label releases over the last five years have been issued (or reissued) under a the flexible payment system. People Like Us also have a history of offering free downloads of entire projects, both new and old. Vicki Bennett is such a firm endorser of the gift economy that she is the top downloaded audio artist on UbuWeb.

Welcome Abroad by People Like Us

“Welcome Abroad” by People Like Us
Release date: 24 May 2011
Illegal Art IA124 http://www.illegalart.net

UK – price including P&P: $11.00
Buy in UK

EUROPE – price including P&P: $12.00

Buy in rest of Europe

ELSEWHERE – price including P&P: $13.00
Buy in rest of world

Download as mp3s, FLAC, plus some video downloads
“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

Vicki Bennett, under the People Like Us moniker, returns from several collaborations for her first solo album in several years. Stranded in the United States for an extended period after the Icelandic volcano eruption blocked her British homeland’s airspace, Bennett derived thematic material of displacement, travel, and a longing for elsewhere, from the natural disaster that caused her own predicament. 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.

Taking a glance at just a few tracks from Welcome Abroad, songs from The Beatles, Ennio Morricone, Danny Kaye, Bob Dylan, Rod McKuen, Elton John, Gene Pitney, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, John Denver, Julie London, and Queen are all amalgamated.  While recent mashup culture often centers 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.

Since 1991 British artist Vicki Bennett has been an influential figure in the field of audiovisual collage, through her innovative sampling, appropriating and cutting up of found footage and archives. Using collage as her main form of expression, she creates audio recordings, films and radio shows that communicate a humorous, dark and often surreal view on life. These collages mix, manipulate and rework original sources from both the experimental and popular worlds of music, film, television and radio.

People Like Us believe in open access to archives for creative use, and have made work using footage from the Prelinger Archives, The Internet Archive, and A/V Geeks. In 2006 she was the first artist to be given unrestricted access to the entire BBC Archive. People Like Us have previously shown work at Tate Modern, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre and Sonar, and performed radio sessions for John Peel and Mixing It. The ongoing sound art radio show ‘DO or DIY’ on WFMU has had over three quarters of a million hits since 2003. The People Like Us back catalogue is available for free download hosted by UbuWeb.

With the release of Welcome Abroad, Illegal Art continues to embrace a pay-what-you-want business model for high-quality downloads. All label releases over the last five years have been issued (or reissued) under a the flexible payment system. People Like Us also have a history of offering free downloads of entire projects, both new and old. Vicki Bennett is such a firm endorser of the gift economy that she is the top downloaded audio artist on UbuWeb.

Press Quotes:
“… a freeform, unfolding imaginary landscape that is liberally peppered with slapstick.” – Phil England, The Wire
“Bennett has continued to impress us with her technical ability and her wonderful sense of the ridiculous.” – Olli Siebelt, BBC
“… beautiful, compelling, funny, crazy stuff. I listen to [People Like Us] while sitting at my drawing board.” – Matt Groening
“… it is that delirious adventure to tune in Disney cartoons while we administered a strong dose of amphetamines, LSD, and any other lysergic cocktail.” – J. Carlos Vellamueva, Rolling Stone (Mexico)
“… after prolonged exposure to the alchemical work of Vicki Bennett, we see and hear our own everyday world as one big joke which is already cut to pieces. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.” – Drew Daniel, Matmos
“… warped-out easy easy-listening goddess and sample abuser extraordinaire.” – Ben Willmott, NME
“Bennett has taken Eisenstein’s montage collisions and refashioned them as bumper cars at a seaside carnival.” – Jim Supanick, Film Society of Lincoln Center

right click on thumbnails to download large images

The plume of smoke and so on

As you all know there are a lot of displaced beings on the planet and that does not exclude People Like Us. As a result we are not going to be able to perform in Barcelona on Thursday 22nd April and are waiting to find out if we can reschedule once people are not trapped all over the place. At present there’s not much we can do except enjoy being somewhere else, but we obviously were very much wanting to play in Barcelona. But what can you do about a plume of whatever it is?

Update: we are now back and trying to reschedule the Barcelona concert for July and will keep you posted by updating the old concert announcement when it is confirmed.