Michel Delville

Michel Delville (born 1969, Liège, Belgium) is a Belgian musician, writer and teacher.

He has been performing and composing alternative music since the mid-1980s. His most recent projects include the quintet The Wrong Object (which he founded in 2002 and for which he has written nearly all the songs that have been released so far),^[1] douBt, Machine Mass feat. Dave Liebman, Alex Maguire's Electric 6tet, the New Texture Pan Tonal Fellowship (under the direction of Stanley Jason Zappa), the Ed Mann Project, and the new Belgo-Dutch combo the Moving Tones. He has played and recorded with Dave Liebman, Elton Dean, Annie Whitehead, Harry Beckett, Richard Sinclair, Ed Mann, Alex Maguire, Dagmar Krause, Benoît Moerlen (who joined the Moving Tones for a series of gigs in 2008), Tony Bianco, Karen Mantler, Geoff Leigh, Markus Stauss, Guy Segers, Klaus Blasquiz, Gilad Atzmon, Dirk Wachtelear and others. The last few years have been a productive period, with recording and touring taking Delville to many different countries (including Japan, England, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Wales, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Greece, Luxembourg and Belgium). Radio programmes about his musical works – and about the music he has written for The Wrong Object since 2002 – have been aired by RTBF, RAI3,^[2] RTC,^[3] VPRO,^[4] and many other independent TV and radio channels,^[5] and received positive reviews from publications such as Jazzwise,^[6][7] Down Beat,^[8] Guitar Player,^[9] Signal to Noise,^[10] Allmusic,^[11] Musica Jazz (July 2008), Jazz Review,^[12] Exposé (September 2008),^[13] and others independent magazines, e-zines and blogs.^[14]

In 2009 he teamed up with Alex Maguire (Michael Moore, Elton Dean, Sean Bergin) and Tony Bianco (Dave Liebman, Paul Dunmall, Evan Parker, Peter Brötzmann) to create a new power-trio, douBt. Their debut release, Never Pet a Burning Dog, featured Richard Sinclair on guest vocals and bass.^[15] The project toured Japan and Europe in 2010.^[16]

Delville was voted one of the 10 best electric guitarists of the year 2010 by Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Annual Jazz Station Poll, which also voted douBt 3rd best Instrumental Group.^[17]

In 2010 he was invited to join and coordinate Comicoperando,^[18] a tribute to the music of Robert Wyatt whose line-up includes Dagmar Krause, Richard Sinclair, Annie Whitehead, Gilad Atzmon, Alex Maguire, Chris Cutler, John Edwards and Cristiano Calcagnile. In 2011 the band toured Europe and Canada as a sextet in 2011.^[19] Recently, Delville joined the international collective 48 Cameras.^[20] In 2012, Dave Liebman joins Machine Mass, an electro-jazz band founded with Tony Bianco in 2010.^[21]

Delville currently teaches literature and comparative literature at the University of Liège, where he directs the Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Poetics.^[22] He is the author of several books pertaining to comparative poetics and interdisciplinary studies (see the selected bibliography below). He has also edited four volumes and published about one hundred articles dealing with contemporary poetics and interdisciplinary studies.^[23] His awards and distinctions include the 1998 SAMLA Book Award, the Choice Outstanding Book Award, the Léon Guérin Prize, the 2001 Alumni Award of the Belgian American Educational Foundation,^[24] the rank of Officer of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)^[25] I (2009), and the 2009 Prix Wernaers pour la recherche et la diffusion des connaissances.^[26][27]

Selected discography

• The Wrong Object, The Wrong Object feat. Ed Mann – Zappanale 2004 (Maximalist Records, promo CD, 2004)
• The Wrong Object feat. Ed Mann Live at Zappanale (Arf Records, 2005)
• The Wrong Object, The Unbelievable Truth (Moonjune Records, 2006) featuring Elton Dean
• The Wrong Object, Platform One (Voiceprint, 2007) feat. Harry Beckett and Annie Whitehead
• Trank Zappa Grappa in Varèse, More Light (Fazzul Music, 2007)
• PaNoPTiCoN, Live at L'An Vert (After-Z Productions, 2008)
• The Wrong Object, Stories from the Shed (studio release; Moonjune Records, January 2008)
• Alex Maguire Sextet, Brewed in Belgium (Moonjune Records, 2008)
• Trank Zappa Grappa in Varèse, TZGIV Play Zappa (Fazzul Music, 2009)
• PaNoPTiCoN, Dawn of the New World (After-Z Productions, 2009)
• PaNoPTiCoN, Dusk of the New World (After-Z Productions, 2009)
• The Wrong Object feat. Stanley Jason Zappa and Nick Shrowaczewski, Live at Zappanale 2008 (Fazzul Music, 2009)
• douBt (Alex Maguire/Michel Delville/Tony Bianco), Never Pet a Burning Dog (Moonjune Records, 2010)
• PaNoPTiCoN, Live @ El Negocito (After-Z Productions, 2011)
• Machine Mass Trio (Tony Bianco/Michel Delville/Jordi Grognard), As Real as Thinking (Moonjune Records, 2011)
• 48 Cameras, Right North, she said ... (Interzone, 2012)
• douBt (Alex Maguire/Michel Delville/Tony Bianco), Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love (Moonjune Records, 2012)
• Comicoperando, Live at the Bimhuis (promo CD)
• The Wrong Object, After the Exhibition (Moonjune, 2013)
• NichelOdeon, Bath Salts (Lizard Rec/Den Rec, 2013)
• Robin Rimbaud/48Cameras, We Could Bring You Silk in May (Interzone, 2013)
• Machine Mass feat. Dave Liebman, Inti (Moonjune, forthcoming 2013)

Selected bibliography

As author

• Crossroads Poetics: Text, Image, Music, Film & Beyond (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia/Charles University Prague, 2013)
• Entre la poire et le fromage (Lyon/Marseille: Editions Kirographaires, 2013)
• Eating the Avant-Garde (Routledge, 2008)
• Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and the Secret History of Maximalism (cowritten with Andrew Norris; Salt Publishing, 2005)
• Le Troisième corps (Le Fram, 2004) (poetry collection). Translated into English by Gian Lombardo as Third Body (Florence, MA: Quale Press, 2009)
• Hamlet & Co (cowritten with Pierre Michel; Editions de l'ULg, 2003)
• The American Prose Poem (The University of Florida Press, 1998)
• J.G. Ballard (Northcote House/The British Council, 1998)

As editor or co-editor

• L’œuvre en morceaux : Esthétiques de la mosaïque (Paris : Les Impressions Nouvelles, 2006)
• Le Rossignol instrumental : Poésie, musique, modernité. (Leuven, Paris, Dudley, MA : Peeters/Vrin, 2004)
• Sound as Sense: US Poetry &/In Music (Brussels, Bern, Frankfurt, New York : Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes-Peter Lang, 2003)
• Postwar American Poetry: The Mechanics of the Mirage (Liège: L3, 2000)

References

External links

• Official website for Michel Delville
• Myspace for Michel Delville
• Michel Delville at AllMusic
• CIPA
• Michel Delville: Portrait