Showing posts with label ergo phizmiz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ergo phizmiz. Show all posts

Wednesday, 19 April 2017

The Unreleased Ergo Phizmiz Volume One





Between 2001-2015 Dominic Robertson's erstwhile alter-ego Ergo Phizmiz released hundreds of hours of music, radio, theatre and installation art. At the same time, he released three records of critically acclaimed songwriting on independent label Care in the Community Recordings: "Things to Do and Make", "Eleven Songs" and "The Peacock". These records were culled from a huge amount of tracks in collaboration with the label, leaving the rest waiting for their moment in the sunshine.

And here it is! Volume One of "The Unreleased Ergo Phizmiz", ten songs produced between 2007-2015, never previously heard except at live shows here and there. One review of "Things to Do and Make" pointed out that the release "goes to show that major record labels have lost touch completely", and these songs give further credence to this statement. Ergo Phizmiz trundled on with this music until the sense of futility won out and the only thing to do was stop and try to gather perspective.

At a time when other outsider DIY songwriters are being given their just dues, it's about time this music was heard by a wider audience. So send it to your friends, play it at your parties, put it on your radioshow. If you have spare pennies, buy it and help one of the most productive artists on the planet pay his long overdue rent and bills!

Thursday, 16 March 2017

Boubouroche - A Longer Player


"Boubouroche" - A Longer Player by Dominic Robertson



The Sun God be praised! From one of the world's most prolific and inventive composers comes his first long(er) player in nigh on three years, and the first to be released since dropping the moniker Ergo Phizmiz - a name under which he released hundreds of hours of music.

"Boubouroche" is an epic odyssey through experimental pop music, fragmented classical, electronic work-outs, and mutant disco. Recorded between 2015-2016, the album combines musical craftsmanship and a flawless sense of melody with Dominic's trademark nihilistic humour, from the pitch-perfect pop of "Waresley Wood" and "Disposable Love Song", the sledgehammer satire of "NME", the fragile de-collage of "Salad Amadeus", to the relentless churn of Casio keyboard bangers like "Pavilion Two Step" and "Uncertainty Disco".

Combining original composition with found-lyrics and reconstituted historical music, this is an album imbued with a dual sense of magic and radicalism. Songs of bad romance, art history, catholic fantasy, science-fiction collide with impeccable instrumentals to create an unforgettable record unlike any other you are likely to hear this, or any, year. And that includes the new record by Steps, brilliant though it will surely be.

The lyrical content of the record is taken from all over the place - newspapers, history books, political pamphlets, music magazines, cheap romance novels, art documentaries, and found handwritten CD cases.

Dominic Robertson is a composer, writer, collagist, theatre director, installation artist, film-maker, actor, performance-artist, and creator of radio-plays. Across the past 17 years he has developed a reputation as one of the most uncompromising and unique artists in the world. His music has been released by Discrepant, Care in the Community Recordings, Gagarin Records, DePlayer, Soleilmoon, and Illegal Art, and his highly acclaimed radio work broadcast on Bayerischer Rundfunk, WDR, WFMU, Resonance FM, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 6Music and Deutschlandradiokultur. For many years he released countless hours of music for free online, under a Creative Commons license - there are over 3000 videos using his music now online. Elsewhere he has created television for Channel 4, operas for Mahogany Opera Group and Tete-a-Tete Opera, the soundtrack to acclaimed Coney Island documentary "Famous Nathan", and most recently the Brexit science-fiction opera / community play "That Happy Breed" for Worm, Rotterdam. Among the artists with whom he has collaborated are Lukas Simonis, R Stevie Moore, Felix Kubin, Frederic Wake-Walker, Vicki Bennett / People Like Us, Frankie Boyle, Pollyester, Patrick Sims, and Luke Fowler. A retrospective book of his visual work was published as "Cold Collation" by the arts publisher Content Series in 2015. His writing has been published by the International Journal for Flann O'Brien Studies, DePlayer, and The Wire magazine.

"Boubourouche" is performed on voice, piano, violin, electric guitar, electronic keyboards, bird-whistle, Newton's Cradle, feedback, and sound-collage, and is entirely recorded in the brown carpeted box that is Casseablanca Studios, in the home of brown that is Bridport, UK. The costumes on the front cover, and photographs, are by Kitty Callister, taken during rehearsals for Mahogany Opera Group's "Mozart vs Machine" in Folkestone.

This album is dedicated to Dominic's dad, Stormin' Norman.