Michel Delville is a musician, writer and lecturer born in Liège, Belgium.
His recent musical projects - most of which are signed to New York-based label MoonJune Records - include The Wrong Object, Machine Mass feat. Dave Liebman, douBt, Comicoperando, The Gödel Codex, Ensemble Mosae, Trank Zappa Grappa in Varese and 48Cameras.
He has played and recorded with Elton Dean, Dave Liebman, Annie Whitehead, Harry Beckett,
Chris Cutler, Tony Levin, Robin Verheyen, Richard Sinclair, Ed Mann, Tony Bianco, Alex Maguire, Dagmar Krause, Benoît Moerlen, Karen Mantler, Geoff Leigh, Gary Lucas, Robin Rimbaud, The Brussels Philharmonic, John Edwards, Stanley Zappa, Bobby Martin, Gilad Atzmon, and many jazz & rock luminaries.
Extensive recording and touring has taken Delville to many different countries, including Japan, the United States, Canada, England, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Wales, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Greece. Delville is regularly featured in Downbeat, Guitar Player, Jazzwise, All About Jazz, Jazzitalia, Musica Jazz and other high profile international magazines. In 2018 he was voted one of the 3 best electric guitarists of the year by Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Annual Jazz Station Poll.
Delville teaches literature and comparative literature at the University of Liège. He is the author or editor of some thirty books and more than two hundred articles pertaining to comparative poetics and interdisciplinary studies. His awards and distinctions include the SAMLA Book Award, the Choice Outstanding Book Award, the Wernaers Prize for the promotion of research and the diffusion of scientific knowledge and the Belgian American Educational Foundation Alumni Award.
Guitarist Michel Delville is quite stunning whether soloing or filling out the spaces between. Suppose you've a friend, who thinks jazz-rock an aberration and fusion noodling its inevitable nadir. Here's what you do. Strap them to a chair, put this on at full volume and leave them a few hours. If by then they still don't get it, find another friend.
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise
Irrepressible guitarist Michel Delville is at home in virtually any musical context. In a scene crowded with hotshot guitar heroes, he has an immediately identifiable sound and the maturity and pacing of his solos truly stands out.
Dave Wayne, All About Jazz
Michel Delville remains a guiding force, a highly creative electric guitarist.
Dave Lynch, All Music Guide
Michel Delville, leader and guitarist of The Wrong Object from Liege, Belgium, is writing tunes which emulate Zappa's taste for succinct idiosyncrasy and melodic lilt. In a modern music scene that regularly trundles out all the paraphernalia of intelligence (laptops, bald heads, performers, desk-tops like mad electronic laboratories), this is the real thing.
Ben Watson, HIFINEWS
Like Frisell & Torn, Delville can play all around an idea and look at it from many different angles.
ZNR
Covering Rypdal's 'Over Birkerot' Michel Delville helps the song veer off from being an out-and-out rocker akin to the original and more a search for the heart of 'Birkerot', circa 2010, with multi-layered rhythmic pulses, unwieldy guitar lines with reverb that send the music airborne.
John Ephland, Downbeat
Along with the likes of David Torn, David Kollar, Roger Trigaux, Richard Pinhas, and others defined as nominally “rock” plank spankers, Michel Delville shares an exploratory and individualistic approach to his instrument that ensures that everything he’s ever been a part of never falls into cliché.
Roger Trenwith, The Progressive Aspect
Led by Michel Delville, an evil genius of the guitar, Belgian band The Wrong Object taps into the subsection of the Canterbury continuum that digs the labyrinthine licks and uber-tight arrangements of Frank Zappa. And when Delville lets loose on his axe, that appellation for one’s instrument starts to seem very literal.
Jim Allen, Bandcamp Daily
Guitar maestro Michel Delville spins out some of the snarliest fret work since the passing of Master Pete Cosey.
Jazz Music Archives
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise
Irrepressible guitarist Michel Delville is at home in virtually any musical context. In a scene crowded with hotshot guitar heroes, he has an immediately identifiable sound and the maturity and pacing of his solos truly stands out.
Dave Wayne, All About Jazz
Michel Delville remains a guiding force, a highly creative electric guitarist.
Dave Lynch, All Music Guide
Michel Delville, leader and guitarist of The Wrong Object from Liege, Belgium, is writing tunes which emulate Zappa's taste for succinct idiosyncrasy and melodic lilt. In a modern music scene that regularly trundles out all the paraphernalia of intelligence (laptops, bald heads, performers, desk-tops like mad electronic laboratories), this is the real thing.
Ben Watson, HIFINEWS
Like Frisell & Torn, Delville can play all around an idea and look at it from many different angles.
ZNR
Covering Rypdal's 'Over Birkerot' Michel Delville helps the song veer off from being an out-and-out rocker akin to the original and more a search for the heart of 'Birkerot', circa 2010, with multi-layered rhythmic pulses, unwieldy guitar lines with reverb that send the music airborne.
John Ephland, Downbeat
Along with the likes of David Torn, David Kollar, Roger Trigaux, Richard Pinhas, and others defined as nominally “rock” plank spankers, Michel Delville shares an exploratory and individualistic approach to his instrument that ensures that everything he’s ever been a part of never falls into cliché.
Roger Trenwith, The Progressive Aspect
Led by Michel Delville, an evil genius of the guitar, Belgian band The Wrong Object taps into the subsection of the Canterbury continuum that digs the labyrinthine licks and uber-tight arrangements of Frank Zappa. And when Delville lets loose on his axe, that appellation for one’s instrument starts to seem very literal.
Jim Allen, Bandcamp Daily
Guitar maestro Michel Delville spins out some of the snarliest fret work since the passing of Master Pete Cosey.
Jazz Music Archives
Live @ Le Botanique - photo (c) 2013 Susan Clynes
