ANIMALIUM KEPLER 22B

 

The new radioplay "Animalium Kepler 22B" by Dominic Robertson (Ergo Phizmiz PLC), performed by Lottie Bowater and Dominic Robertson, is available now to stream and download from Bayerischer Rundfunk.

The Unreleased Ergo Phizmiz Volume II

 

Ergo Phizmiz (PLC) presents the second instalment of "The Unreleased Ergo Phizmiz Volume II", choice offcuts of songwriting and music culled from the hidden archives between 2007-16.

Here be songs of Papal abduction, the eating of human flesh, science-fiction, Alvin Lucier rock, rabbits and hypnotism. Plus two instrumentals - "Guide to Tunisia", a baroque fantasie, and "Tadpole March", which is pretty self explanatory.

And you can grab "The Unreleased Ergo Phizmiz Volume I" HERE. And a cover of the album in its entirety by the brilliant Pete Murphy HERE.

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.

NIBIRU!

ERGO PHIZMIZ (PLC)

presents a musical version of

NIBIRU!

What the world undoubtedly needs in these troubled times is a massive, epic concept album about the apocalypse, conspiracy theories, and [social]networking. This is that album.

Given that it has been proposed Nibiru is going to smash and obliterate the earth in mid December 2017, this album has only a few days to be listened to. You'd better dig in.
 

Smash-ups of spoken-word, sound-collage, electronic music, live instruments, and the best of Youtube. This is your party as Rome burns. Wrap up warm.

NIBIRU! is a production of the end-of-the-world renowned operatic abomination Ergo Phizmiz (Public Limited Company).

HOW TO MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO FOR A CONCEPT ALBUM AT THE END OF THE WORLD

TAKE A CADBURY'S FLAKE ADVERT, SLOW IT DOWN TO THE LENGTH OF THE TRACK

TAKE A YOUTUBE VIDEO OF A SOLAR ECLIPSE, WHICH TURNS OUT, AS IT HAPPENS, TO HAVE THE WORDS “RIGHT WING” SUDDENLY AND ABRUPTLY SPATTERED ONTO THE SCREEN

REALISE THAT THE UNIVERSE IS

IN THE FINAL THROES OF EARTH

DOING YOU FAVOURS 

AND MAKING REALLY UNPLEASANT SATIRE 

WITHOUT YOU REALLY MEANING TO

SLOW THIS DOWN TOO

ADD SOME DODGY CHROMA KEY

PLACE THE WATERMARK OF 

SOME CORPORATION OR OTHER 

ONTO THE SCREEN

IN THIS CASE THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

ADD 

[ NIBIRU! ]

WATERMARK

Written, Composed, Performed and Produced by Dominic Robertson

Violin improvisations by Lottie [Depresstival] Bowater

Synthesisers performed by Lottie [Depresstival] Bowater, Lukas Simonis, Dominic Robertson (one night at Worm, Rotterdam, when I lost my umbrella) *

Dedicated to Jon Panther, for sending me on the concept album trail, and Richard Kennedy, for the arctic vacations.


* Between writing this text this afternoon and returning tonight to release the album, I was given a new umbrella. Nibiru is definitely coming.  What will we do? If the earth is flat, as some seem to be suggesting, we might be alright - that is, Nibiru might just roll along it like a marble. It could even just skim the bottom. And we all know how nice skimming the bottom is. Wish Nibiru the best of luck. And a happy Eczemas to all the politicians, to the rise of everyday Fascism, the continuing infringements of human rights and civil liberties, and the general, mainstream, wilful regression into idiocy that is happening seemingly everywhere. Happy fucking what? Tell the Ravens to leave the Tower of London as soon as possible and find another planet. I know Beefeaters look nice and all that but everything has its day. Goodbye, have a nice eternity.

Baptism

The baptism of the artist formerly known as Ergo Phizmiz into Ergo Phizmiz (Public Limited Company) happened in Aldeburgh. The minister was Frederic Wake-Walker. The church organist was Bryan Benner singing Schubert in the wind. Synergy was chanted, and glasses were hummed. Champagne imbibed. Marcel Duchamp had conveniently provided decor. It was wet, but not sticky. Lottie Bowater captured the event.

 

 
Es war ein König in Thule,
Gar treu bis an das Grab,
Dem sterbend seine Buhle
einen goldnen Becher gab.

Es ging ihm nichts darüber,
Er leert' ihn jeden Schmaus;
Die Augen gingen ihm über,
So oft er trank daraus.

Und als er kam zu sterben,
Zählt' er seine Städt' im Reich,
Gönnt' alles seinen Erben,
Den Becher nicht zugleich.

Er saß beim Königsmahle,
Die Ritter um ihn her,
Auf hohem Vätersaale,
Dort auf dem Schloß am Meer.

Dort stand der alte Zecher,
Trank letzte Lebensglut,
Und warf den heiligen Becher
Hinunter in die Flut.

Er sah ihn stürzen, trinken
Und sinken tief ins Meer,
die Augen täten ihm sinken,
Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr.