Ergo Phizmiz — The Faust Cycle

or, The House of Dr Faus­tus

One after­noon Ergo Phizm­iz finds him­self lumbered into deliv­er­ing a par­cel to the house of legendary alchem­ist and nec­ro­man­cer Dr Johann Faus­tus who, since the events of some time ago for which he is renowned, has entered into a rather quieter life in a vast, labyrinth­ine house, with hun­dreds of lodgers run­ning the gamut from artists, birds, bird-people, walk­ing fic­tions, vent­ri­lo­quists, a Cas­sowary, run­ning chairs, walk­ing gramo­phones, and myri­ad auto­mata.

This enorm­ous dream fable, told through speech, songs, col­lage and sound-design, is the res­ult of over three years delving down vari­ous rab­bit-holes, and fea­tures col­lab­or­a­tions in a range of con­texts with artists of many dis­cip­lines, includ­ing Jack Phoenix, Mar­gita Zal­ite, Pete Um, Angela Val­id, Bela Emer­son, Martha Moo­pette, Amie Will­in­gale, and Zenith Pitts.

In glor­i­ous radio­phon­ic tech­ni­col­our, it is a music­al-com­edy of dis­or­i­ent­a­tion and magick, some­where between night­mare and the half-remembered child­hood whimsy of an insom­ni­ac music-hall artiste.

Please note — “The Faust Cycle” is not, neces­sar­ily, suit­able for sens­it­ive ears at times, con­tain­ing, as it does, some naughty words, some sexy ref­er­ences, and a healthy smat­ter­ing of scato­lo­gic­al excess.

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Writ­ten, Com­posed, Per­formed & Pro­duced: Ergo Phizm­iz

Writ­ten & Recor­ded 2006–2009
Vent­nor, New­port, East Cowes, Ryde, Fresh­wa­ter, Buck­fastleigh, Brighton, Lon­don (UK)
La Fer­ri­ere aux Etangs, La Noe de Fendre­ment (France)
Tir­gu-Mures, Transylvania (Romania)

Pro­ject con­sult­ants: James Nye, Martha Moo­pette, The Trav­el­ling Mon­goose

Cov­er Art: Mor­itz Grünke

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MP3 [5 chunks, 320kbps & art­work, 1.9GB, zip]
OGG [848 minutes, 114kbps, 876 MB, ogg]
FLAC [848 minutes, 4 GB, flac]

FMA-spe­cial-edi­tion - There’s a very spe­cial edi­tion of “The Faust Cycle” at the FMA which con­sists of 12 por­tions, each some­what around 70 minutes, in mp3 (256kbps)

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Chunk 1

“Divin­a­tion” & “Dick & Liz Expound”

00:00 — 01:38
Fea­tur­ing “Little Oct­et for Assor­ted Tubes & Cones” by James Nye
“The Legend of George Scrape”

01:40 — 02:41
Vent­ri­lo­quist per­formed by Zenith Pitts
George Scrape story devised with James Nye & Martha Moo­pette
“From The Toi­let of Des­pair”

02:42
End
Impro­vised by James Nye & Ergo Phizm­iz

Chunk 2

“Culin­ary Philo­sophy”
00:00 — 00:52
Addi­tion­al music by James Nye & Mar­gita Zal­ite

00:52 — 00:58
“Little Oct­et for Assor­ted Tubes & Cones” by James Nye

00:58 — 01:18
“An Even­ing in Hell” — Piano work
Com­posed, Per­formed & Pro­duced by James Nye
“Oper­at­ic Laughter”

01:18 — 01:46
Addi­tion­al music by Mar­gita Zal­ite

01:47 — 02:16
Dr Faus­tus Act­or per­formed by Pete Um
Eloise per­formed by Mar­gita Zal­ite

02:16
End
Impro­visa­tion for Cello & Elec­tron­ics by Bela Emer­son

Chunk 3

00:00 — 00:01
“An Even­ing in Hell” by James Nye, reprise

00:01 — 00:26
“Hell Kebabs” — Elec­troacous­tic work
Com­posed, Per­formed & Pro­duced by Angela Val­id

“Gretchen”
00:26 — 00:52
Text developed with and per­formed by Martha Moo­pette
Trum­pet by Mark Upton
Impro­visa­tion for Cello & Elec­tron­ics by Bela Emer­son
“Chron­icles of the Sus­pi­cious Gen­tle­man”

00:52 ‑01:14
“Fever” per­formed by Mar­gita Zal­ite
“Madi­ana” com­posed & per­formed with Aaron Islamb

“Helen”
01:14 — 01:45
Addi­tion­al vocals by Mar­gita Zal­ite
Fea­tur­ing “Little Oct­et for Assor­ted Tubes & Cones” by James Nye

01:44 — 02:00
Record­ings of “The Faust Cycle” work­shops at
Quay Arts Pod­casts edited by Simon Perry
Work­shops facil­it­ated with James Nye

“Kin­eto­scopes & Dung”
02:00
End
Trum­pet by Mark Upton
“An Even­ing in Hell” by James Nye
Foley cre­ated with The Trav­el­ling Mon­goose
Inter­pret­a­tions of Erik Satie’s “Le Tango Per­petuel” cre­ated with James Nye
Viol­in solo impro­vised by Amie Will­in­gale

Chunk 4

“The Bird Machines”
00:00 — 01:30
Fea­tur­ing “Little Oct­et for Assor­ted Tubes & Cones” by James Nye
“The Abduc­tion of the Object”

01:28
End
Impro­visa­tions by James Nye & Ergo Phizm­iz
Eloise per­formed by Martha Moo­pette & Rebecca Robertson
The Invent­or per­formed by Zenith Pitts

Chunk 5

“Garden”
00:00 — 00:43
Voice of the Vine per­formed by James Nye
“The Inven­tion of Birds” & “The Cir­cus of Delight­ful Misery”

00:43 ‑02:56
Inter­pret­a­tions of Erik Satie’s “Le Tango Per­petuel” cre­ated with James Nye
“Secrets” mono­logue writ­ten & per­formed by James Nye
The Voice of Faus­tus per­formed by Zenith Pitts
Field-Record­ings by The Trav­el­ling Mon­goose
Insect Record­ings by Irene Moon

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Con­tains inter­pret­a­tions of music by

Clau­dio Mon­teverdi
Carlo Gesu­aldo
Mel­chi­or Franck
Thomas Ravenscroft
The Four Tops
Peggy Lee
Erik Satie
Sergei Prokofiev
Jacques Offen­bach
Arthur Sul­li­van
Georges Biz­et
Cam­ille Saint-Saens
J.S. Bach
Charles Ten­ni­er
Giuseppe Verdi
Argen­tian Tango from “Un Chi­en Andalou”
Cole Port­er
W.A. Moz­art
Bert Kal­mar & Harry Ruby

Con­tains samples too numer­ous to name…

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Thanks to
All the artists involved, Kate, Talu­lah & Autumn, Jeremy Court, Dav­id Fenech, Felix Kubin & Gagar­in Records, Vul­navia Van­ity, the Faus­tus of the West Coun­try, Sal & Simon, Matt John­son, Sound­art Radio, Chris, Lucinda, et al, WFMU, Zoe & Storm, Vicki & Peter , Sid & Maz, Jo Hum­mel Newell & all at Quay, Penny King & Angela Unsworth, Steven Streight, Chinky Bol­in, Soleilmoon, Doy­ous­peak­eng­lish Radio, Proot Records, Patrick Sims, Sarah & Peter Nel­son, Satan­ic­por­no­cult­shop, Tomomi Ada­chi, Erik Bumble­donk, Anthony Locke, Mor­itz Grünke

Ded­ic­ated to
Joseph Cor­nell
Ken Camp­bell
More­cambe & Wise

Sup­por­ted by
Arts Coun­cil Eng­land
Vaguely Mar­supi­al Pro­duc­tions
Mar­tin Ender­lein @ Head­phon­ica
Sound­art Radio
Vent­norB­log
Quay Arts
BüroPlus­punkt

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Weblinks Ergo Phizm­iz
ergophizmiz.net
ergophizmiz.blogspot.com
twitter.com/ergophizmiz

oth­er links
James Nye
Angela Val­id
Bela Emer­son
Mar­gita Zal­ite
Martha Moo­pette
Pete Um
Mark Upton
Amie Will­in­gale
Aaron Islamb
Simon Perry

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Ele­ments of The Faust Cycle were presen­ted as works in pro­gress on WFMU, and Sound­art Radio, who also broad­cast the premiere of the entire work.

Instru­ment­al excerpts have been released as “Music From The House of Dr Faus­tus” on the FMA