Ergo Phizmiz - Things To Do And Make

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4...according to our Clinton on Fri 10 Sep, 2010.

Sometimes the people here at Norman Towers just know exactly what will whet my whistle. Apparently this guy has already been awarded the coveted Norman records 'Album of the Week' gong....Mercury Music Prize - pah! This is a very eccentric, very English style of music with heavy nods towards the pastoral English quirky pop of 'Village Green' era Kinks and Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. The vocals are presented in perfectly clipped upper class English tones but the music is ramshackle yet extremely melodic. My favourite is 'Food and War' where a malfunctioning cuckoo clock battles with parping bicycle horns, the same horn passes through 'Hotel' this time accompanied with twanging banjos. The more melancholic numbers recall Robert Wyatt yet Ergo often comes across as a British take on Al Duvall, mining music from the pre rock and roll era but bringing a modern sensibility to it. The best thing is he never forgets to write a tune and despite the clattering toy instruments theres a fantastic melancholy to a lot of the tracks. You can imagine him touring the country armed with a big bass drum, toy accordian, banjo and various horns attached, moustache quivering as he entertains gaggles of onlookers. Really worth a go this one. Highly recommended.

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Composer, multi-instrumentalist and broadcaster Ergo Phizmiz first came to national attention for his electronica through the late Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Since then he has broadened his musical horizon to collaborate with The The, score a film for international art star Christian Marclay, undertake a growing number of BBC radio commissions and write operatic works. It’s unsurprising then that he has attracted a ‘serious’ music audience with Michael Nyman being in attendance at Ergo’s last London show.However the predominantly acoustic Things To Do and Make is Ergo’s first foray into what could be called ‘Eccentric Pop’. Exuding the energy and theatricality of his live performance, that can see him flit from grand piano to drums via trumpet or self-made instrument and back, it marries his characteristic sense of the absurd, recalling Vivian Stanshall and the quintessential art school band, The Bonzos, with an inventive and melodic folk-pop. The first single from the album is the Lennonesque anti-love song ‘Late’ configured for a one-man band: it is easy to picture Ergo with a bass drum strapped to his back, strumming a guitar with a tin whistle at the ready. As with all Ergo’s output this album conveys his sense of pleasure and fun in making music but with this new found pop sensibility,its an experience he should be sharing with a much larger audience from now on.

“the album is really, really good!” - Rob Da Bank,Radio One

"The Emperor of music!" - Tom Ravenscroft, Channel 4 Radio"One of the most inventive composers around ... a musical equivalent to Chris Morris" - BBC Radio 3, Mixing It

"Not so much a one-man band as a one man movement" - The Wire Magazine

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