ERGO PHIZMIZ PLC IN 2017

Well goodness me.

As I'm sure you all appreciated, being The World's Most Deluxe Entertainer is no meagre task, and it is necessary for me to exert all my muscle-power to push the broken-down tractor of entertainment through the thick slurry.

It is for this reason, despite the impending collapse of society, that over the last calendar year I have been engaged in the following pursuits.

Mozart vs Machine

For the last five years or so the good folk at Mahogany Opera Group have been cooking up this treat, which premiered at Folkestone Fringe last February and went on to tour the UK, with an international tour now in the works. Read how excited the nice people got.

I also sat in the Electric Cafe with Lady Victoria of Bennett and the results were recorded for posterity in The Quietus. 

A short film by Lottie Bowater on "Mozart vs Machine"

The United Kingdom of Earth

In mid 2016, prior to the EU Referendum, I was asked by Hajo Doorn, then director of the Worm Avantgarde State, to write a community opera about Brexit. This was presented in Rotterdam in November 2016.

The UK political situation made it irresistible, though not always perhaps advisable, to mount further productions, and so plans for performances in London and Glasgow were drawn up. Enthused, smiling troops of young actors and non-actors marched into the apocalyptic sunset of their respective cities and, behold, "The United Kingdom of Earth" plummeted into London and Glasgow like a very naughty Nibiru. On which, more later...

"The United Kingdom of Earth" imagined a post Brexit Britain that had been entirely cut off from outside resources, and there may not be anything outside at all. It was a big, naughty community pantomime with electronic music and language as fruitsome as a grocer's private stash.

And, despite repeated occurrences of having our funding pulled, being stranded in various places, and all the tribulations of post-apocalyptic life, didn't we have THE FUN?

"The United Kingdom of Earth", following its Rotterdam premiere in November 2016, was presented during 2017 at Tete a Tete: The Opera Festival (London), and CCA Glasgow, presented by the marvellous The Hidden Noise. A shorter version of the piece was also performed in collaboration with Goodiepal & Pals as part of their Cafe Oto Residency (video below).

The Glasgow performance of "The United Kingdom of Earth" had its funding pulled a matter of days before the opening, due to the subject matter being deemed "too sensitive". Then, never shaken, or at least not too fucked up to operate in such a crisis, plus a heavy night on the whisky in a glass fronted shop, the avant-garde power-station Bowater & Robertson sprang into action and this happened...

And lots of you lovely people came out and stopped the whole thing from crumbling and the cast for starving and we're eternally grateful. We are also making you nice presents.

Watch extracts from "The United Kingdom of Earth" performed by Ergo Phizmiz PLC, Lottie Bowater, and Goodiepal & Pals, with a special opening monologue by Carl Foster.

Die Bayerische Prinzessin

In March 2017 my musical radioplay about Alexandra Amalie, the glass-piano swallowing Princess of Bavaria, was broadcast on Bayerischer Rundfunk.

You can hear the piece here. And below are some images to prove it exists.

It also features a killer song about tap dancing, of course.

And in the midst of all this...

I was baptised in the sea at Aldeburgh
as
Ergo Phizmiz
(Public Limited Company)

The Minister was
Frederic Wake-Walker
(Who WAS a real minister)

Synergy was chanted
Bryan Benner gave us Schubert
And champagne glasses sang
And there was hardcore business
In every rock

"PL Slowly and C" .....

Big Thyme

  

Being The World's Most Deluxe Entertainer doesn't stop there. The job requires I do many other things, otherwise the wheels stop turning and things just go wrong. Honestly, if I stopped this for one minute, terrible things would happen in your town.

For this reason I continued my merry pursuit of pop music, and make a record for your delight and delectation called "Big Thyme". It's pretty and is designed to be listened to while your legs are stretching out and being caressed gently by softly enfolding animated vines.

 

 

Boubouroche

I also figured the world probably needed a giant super sexy disco sex party love record with me wearing a golden tabard and a tinfoil space helmet on the front.

   


The Unreleased Ergo Phizmiz Volume One

And, since there seems to be a nice trend towards releasing and re-releasing my old work lately, I thought I ought to jump on the band-wagon and lay out a cold-collation of slices from my previous poptastic albums that didn't make the final cut. This is this.

Shortly after, the hugely inventive and prolific songwriter and composer Pete Murphy brightened up a morning by releasing this giant cover version of the entire album.

Performances at Depresstival Presents

Of late, I have been performing regularly at Depresstival Presents, London's longest running avant-hard night, curated since 2011 by Lottie Bowater, where I present something different every month. So far this has included the premiere performance of my piece "The Avant-Garde Sport Manifesto", a pop song extravaganza, and, below, finally a documented performance of my 2014 opera "Vogel Europa". Come along, generally the first Sunday of every month at The Others Bar in Stoke Newington.

The Beautiful Epoch of Avant-Garde Sport

Why not reclaim sportswear for people who don't like sport, and make sport all about the posing? Why not?

A co-production of me, Rococo Chanel, Lottie Depresstival Bowater, and The Superfools, we invented "The Beautiful Epoch of Avant Garde Sport"

 


I also presented three manifestations of THE AVANT-GARDE SPORT MANIFESTO. At Depresstival Presents (London), Vrooom Festival (Rotterdam) and Festival Blaues Rauschen (Herne). You can see these when I've done my dirty work with the footage.

 

NIBIRU!

And the year just wouldn't have been complete without releasing a giant electro spoken-word concept album about the apocalypse, now, would it?

 

Next?

Is there always more?

Can you spare us?

With being The World's Most Deluxe Entertainer comes Very Deluxe Responsibility. This year, there is great striving and hardcore effort being made to provide all of with the most Deluxe Entertainment plausible.

Coming up next on the Deluxe Entertainment Channel ...

IG Witzelsucht "Sometimes Puns Are a Sign of a Damaged Brain" 12" vinyl and CD release on Knockemdead Records and Megaphone Records. Songs co-written and produced by Lukas Simonis. See below for Lukas and I looking very lovely in Rotterdam, in a music video by Florian Cramer.

IG Witzelsucht - Imagine Imogen (Official Music Video) from fcr on Vimeo.

Also coming up, the next steps of a giant outreach opera project on Dr Johnson's Dictionary, in collaboration with Lottie Bowater, Mahogany Opera Group and Jubilee Opera.

Maybe two or three more shows, but you'll have to wait and see...

Next, Lottie and I are in Munich, to record the science-fiction radioplay "ANIMALIUM KEPLER 22B", which broadcasts on Bayerischer Rundfunk later in the year.