How many of the films referenced can you identify?
This is the opening song from our current album The Hero’s Journey, which you can order on CD for a tenner here.
There are videos for some of the other songs off the album on our Youtube page.
New MFMO Album and London launch gig!
Two years after our last live show and five years after our last album we’re back with a brand new bumper record.
The new album is called The Hero’s Journey, and it’s an epic tour of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth concept, with a song for each of the 17 stages (plus an overture, because 17 tracks simply wasn’t enough, and hey: it’s prog), all in a variety of styles from fantasy film score to disco, to Bollywood and 60s psychedelia, all of course lavishly orchestrated.
You can buy limited edition CD here for ten quid incl. postage & packing worldwide.
It features beautiful original artwork by Chris Gilvan-Cartwright (a.k.a. The Baron!), including a big fold-out poster book treasure-map board-game type thing.
Join us on the Journey!
New Halloween Single: Supernatural Aid!
It’s been a while, but that’s because we’ve been hard at work on the new album (yes, yes, it’s taking forever, but it is an epic of an album in every sense). In the meantime, however, we have a treat for you: a new single in the grand old horror-disco tradition, complete with a ghostly animated video!
The EP is available to pre-order from iTunes here:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/supernatural-aid-ep/id1048227280
And from all other digital media outlets at wildly varying and mysteriously arbitrary prices. It’s a four track EP, but you get the A-side straight away, and the other tracks when the single is “officially” released on October the 23rd.
The tracks are:
- Supernatural Aid (Chamberlain-King/White)
- The Taste of Hair (White)
- Corpse (Chamberlain-King/White)
- Squeeze Me (White)
You’ll remember Squeeze Me and Taste of Hair from MFMO gigs of yore (we recorded them ages ago but haven’t played them live in a long time). Corpse is another song that was done for a rejected film soundtrack along with the track Bad Joke off the Dudley EP.
Supernatural Aid is the first single from the forthcoming and long-delayed album The Hero’s Journey, due early 2016.
New Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra documentary!
Charlotte Young and Elise Bramich made a short documentary about last year’s MFMO Boogaloo residency, which you can now watch online. Interesting and entertaining!
We’re back there again this summer, our first show is on June the 22nd with guests Chris T-T and Sarah Blackwood.
Next gig: June 22nd at The Boogaloo
Thanks to all who came to our show in Bethnal Green with The Indelicates earlier this month. It was quite a show! Exciting for us to collaborate with such kindred spirits, and also an opportunity to showcase some of our own new material from the forthcoming second album.
If you missed it: never fear, we’re gigging again soon, namely at The Boogaloo in Highgate on Sunday, June the 22nd. The show will start at 5pm, and our guests will be the brilliant Chris T-T and Dubstar’s Sarah Blackwood, both of whom we will be accompanying orchestrally. We will of course also be playing a full set of MFMO songs old and new, and playing some songs from Martin’s new work-in-progress stage musical “Polly”.
See you at the Boogaloo!
MFMO live 2014!
We are excited to announce our first live show on 2014!
It will be at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club in London on Tuesday May the 6th. Doors 7.30pm, MFMO on at 8pm.
We will be playing old favourites and also presenting some brand new material from the forthcoming second studio album “The Hero’s Journey”.
Tickets here
We look forward to seeing you there!
New release: Down The Allotment / Waltzing
What a summer it has been! Not only have we hosted a summer season of fun shows with a variety of lovely guests, but we have been busy in the studio too. We have some new songs available in the form of an EP called Down The Allotment, featuring the title track (a jaunty prog epic about freeholding), a new song called Waltzing, a live recording of our vague sea shanty Something Something Something In The Morning, and a daft unreleased recording from the dusty MFMO archives called Four Minutes And Thirty-Three Seconds (not 4′ 33″ of silence, let the highly litigious John Cage estate take note). 
This collection of songs is available from all online stores if you require an immediate fix (or audio preview), and also in physical form, in hand-crafted packaging, directly from us. It features a free seed sellotaped to the cover, to get you started on your own gardening efforts. Only GBP 5.00 including worldwide P&P. Here’s the Paypal link:
MFMO live this Sunday the 28th
This Sunday will see the second of our monthly summer shows at the Boogaloo in Highgate, London. We are very excited!
We’ll be doing a full set of MFMO songs, and also accompanying our special guests, William D Drake, Martin Carr, and Foster & Gilvan.
Doors 4pm, entertainments commence at 5.30pm and conclude at 9.30pm. Admission £3. See you there!
Boogaloo japes
Last Sunday’s Boogaloo show was immense fun, thank-you everyone who joined us!
Strawberry & Cream opened the show with their unique sound (two double-basses, harmonies, and a ukulele) and splendid matching dresses. A particular favourite was their tea song. Every band should have a tea song. Ironically we didn’t play ours this time as Steve Pretty was away letting his lips heal after sustaining third degree burns trying to play a solo on an actual teapot rather than a comedy musical prop. Get well soon Steve!
Next up was Chris T-T, connected to the MFMO rock family tree by so many branches now that it seemed a natural choice to ask him along. I first saw him playing on a bill with Ben Folds and The Divine Comedy at Shepherd’s Bush Empire about ten years ago and have a been a fan ever since, so it was a real treat not only to have him play at our gig but also to collaborate with him. Chris entrusted two of his songs (including a brand new one) to me to orchestrate. We ran through the new one, Tunguska, in the pub cellar before the gig, but the other one, Tall Woman, was performed entirely unrehearsed, with all of us including Chris and me hearing it for the first time in front of the audience. A seat-of-the-pants experience that thankfully turned out lovely, and which I believe was as much a treat for Chris as it was for us.
We did our MFMO set next, mixing some older tunes with new material as the flea era passes and the material from the new album is ushered in. We played Belly of the Whale and the new disco number Supernatural Aid, and will be premiering more Hero’s Journey material at forthcoming gigs. Also receiving its first outing was another glimpse of the still-in-progress epic Adventure On The Transcarpathian Express, this time a ska number about a Ghost Train (yes, an obvious nod to the Specials on that one).
Our set:
- Waltzing
- In The Evil Castle
- An Adventure On The Transcarpathian Express – Part 1
- Supernatural Aid
- Belly Of The Whale
- Something Something Something In The Morning
- Maybe
- An Adventure On The Transcarpathian Express – Part 8: Ghost Train
- Do It Right Or Not At All
- Dudley & His Magic Pants
- Thank-You For Not Discussing The Outside World
- Down The Allotment
The evening’s crowning treat was a headline set from Jim Bob, with whom we have collaborated in various ways in the past (including providing strings for a Carter USM gig at Brixton Academy a couple of years ago). Jim regaled us with some of his idiosyncratic songwriting on solo guitar, and then the MFMO and Chris T-T crammed into the corner to join in five of Jim’s songs writ large, including a brand new song called Breaking News (again with unrehearsed orchestra!).
The evening closed with a gigantic rendition of Jim’s song ‘Touchy Feely’. Rhodri had apparently promised Ben on drums a pint for every repeat chorus he instigated, leading to this climactic spectacle:
Larks aplenty.
The pub have invited the MFMO to curate a monthly summer residency, so we’ll be back there on June 30th, July 28th, and August 25th, with our own songs and sets from special guests including Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, Gary Le Strange, William D Drake, and Martin Carr. More details on these soon, watch this blog!
MFMO gig this Sunday with Jim Bob and Chris T-T
Yes another gig! Aren’t we spoiling you, lucky folk.
We have put together a wonderful festival-style gig at the legendary Boogaloo pub in Highgate on Sunday the 21st of April.
The pub is open from 2pm, and we have invited some wonderful musicians to comprise a very exciting bill of entertainment.
5pm: We will be regaled by the glamourous musical stylings of Strawberry & Cream, featuring MFMO bassist and chanteuse Cat Rogers!
6pm: A set from the great Brighton songwriter Chris T-T. We will be supplying some orchestral backing to a couple of his songs, including a new number from his forthcoming album. Very excited about this, it will be a real treat. I first saw him supporting Ben Folds and The Divine Comedy at Shepherd’s Bush Empire years and years ago and have been a fan ever since, so very much looking forward to working with him for the first time!
7pm: The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra! A big set from us, including some material from the next album and lots of old favourites. There’s going to be a lot of us crammed into the pub, so it should be a visual as well as an aural feast.
8.30pm: A headline set from Jim Bob, with whom we have collaborated several times in the past and are very fortunate to be able to welcome back to one of our gigantic gigs. Jim will be doing his idiosyncratic material at first on solo guitar and then will be joined by the entire orchestra and all the other acts on the bill for a glorious orchestral finale.
Admission is a mere £3.
This is not to be missed!
The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra 