News
DECEMBER 2024: The Gödel Codex trio (PLumer/Guenet/Delville) and their newly-acquired electronics is gathering to plan further mischief.
OCTOBER 2024: Off Records will release In & Outflown, an album of previously unreleased live and studio tracks by The Wrong Object.
SEPTEMBER 2024: MoonJune Festival, Toledo, Spain. The MoonJune global Family Pic.
OCTOBER 2024: Romain Rioboo at Progscopie will produce a live in the studio session featuring Daniel "Univers Zero" Denis and Antoine Guenet alongside yours truly.
JULY 2024: The Wrong Object returns to Zappanale twenty years after their stint with Ed Mann (and sixteen years after their collaboration with Stanley Jason Zappa).
WINTER 2023-24: Starting to gear up plans for a new electro-jazz project featuring Etienne Plumer, Antoine Guenet and a heavy trumpet player. Stay tuned -
FALL 2023: The Wrong Object joins forces with guitr maestro Gary Lucas (Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart, ...) in an evening of petulant frenzy (De Oefenbunker, Heerleen, NL).
SPRING 2023: The Wrong Object performs with a trombone player (Adrien Lambinet) for the first time since their collaboration with Annie Whitehead.
JANUARY 2023: working on the French translation of our graphic essay on the photo-novel (w. Luciano Curreri, Giuseppe Palumbo and Vittorio Frigerio).
FALL 2022: busy co-organising (w. Livio Belloï) the first international conference devoted to the art of Tom Phillips.
AUGUST 19, 2022: The Gödel Codex is back on stage at the Musée de la Vie Wallonne
SPRING/SUMMER 2021: Here are some new prose poetry and photonovel-related books out there.
FEBRUARY 2021: new release: Machine Mass Sextet's Intrusion feat. Tony Bianco, Manuel Hermia, Laurent Blondiau, Antoine Guenet and Damien Campion.
AUGUST 2020: The Wrong Object feat. Manuel Hermia & Pauline Leblond @ Gaume Jazz festival
JULY 2020: Mimesis Edizioni publishes Inni di St. Bridget (a cura di Daniela Daniele), a book and a DVD featuring the music of Machine Mass.
MARCH 2020: opening of exhibition In/Between Places (ERG-Brussels) feat. "InfrAlice" and an aniùated version of "Alice in Shreds" (soundtrack by The Wrong Object), a new collaboration with Elisabeth Waltregny and Alexander Schellow.
FEBRUARY 2020: Off to a recording session with my mates Guy Segers, Joe Higham, Catherine Smets and the rest of the Eclectic Maybe Band gang.
NOVEMBER 2019: MACHINE MASS feat. Manu Hermia, Laurent Blondiau, Antoine Guenet, Damien Campion and the one and only Tony Bianco will celebrate its near 10th birthday and prepare for its 4th studio release at l'An Vert on Nov 29 !
OCTOBER 2019: Just got interviewed by award-winning writer Ken Kubernik on Machine Mass and the Jimi Hendrix legacy:
KEN KUBERNIK: Can you talk about Jimi's influence on you both as a composer and guitarist, with an emphasis on how his "sound" impacted your own approach.
MICHEL DELVILLE: Gear-wise, I am not a Strat guy (I play an Ibanez) and I don’t even own a Marshall amp anymore! That said, what I find fascinating is Jimi’s use of effects and the influence it had on the development of the band’s developing aesthetics. Are You Experienced appeared in 1967 at a time when the Octavia and the Fuzz Face were only beginning to be domesticated by a handful of musicians. The sheer feeling of discovering the gear must have been so exciting, you know, not being influenced by any established tradition, or preexisting models, but taking risks, relishing in discovering the unschooled pleasures and possibilities of making the guitar sound like a machine gun or a hurricane, or a wind instrument, or the human voice, you name it. Jimi was creating new patterns, a new grammar and a new vocabulary for a generation of listeners and guitar players who were born into conventional rhythm and blues attitudes. And, of course, his use of the wah-wah, whose first prototypes were built a year or so before the release of Are You Experienced, was hugely influential on me. I am particularly interested in how Jimi managed to transform and tweak sound in subtle and meaningful ways, you know; his solos invariably tell a good, gripping story but always tell it slant, through artful patterns and seamless transitions.
KK: Being from a later generation, when did you discover Jimi's music and did you embrace it immediately or did your interest develop over time?
MD: I have been influenced by Jimi’s music since my teens. His sonic power and boldness of gesture are a constant source of inspiration for me. His use of feedback also remains a huge influence to the extent that he never considered feedback and distortion as an end in itself but with a view to creating interesting and hitherto unheard harmonics on the electric guitar.
KK: Why this recording [Machine Mass Plays Hendrix] at this time? Did you sense a strong pull from the larger social/political forces at work that led to celebrating Jimi and his music right now? Perhaps it speaks to his timelessness and the vitality of his musical/spiritual message.
MD: Jimi’s style is mercurial, and not just in a metaphorical sense: if you try to emulate it it’ll slip through your fingers. I mean Stevie Ray Vaughan sounded great and so do many later Hendrix impersonators, but to bring something alternative to his repertoire is an altogether different affair. Very few people have sought to reappropriate his musical legacy from a different angle. I think it’s because it’s intimidating, which is probably why I did not attempt a Hendrix “tribute” until I was in my late forties. Jimi’s music is sacred to many musicians, but that shouldn’t be an obstacle to re-readings and revisitations of his works. What we attempted with Machine Mass Plays Hendrix was to rethink the power trio format, using a keyboard player rather than a bass player, deconstructing the structures of the original songs, and using the familiar themes and riffs as building blocks for groovy improvs. It’s like the Doors - or maybe the early Soft Machine - playing Hendrix while listening to Coltrane! And sound-wise, we threw in some zany electronic sounds catered by myself (on guitar and Roland synth-guitar) and Antoine Guenet, who must have used no less than six or seven different keyboards live in the studio. The Roland guitar synth I am using on the record played an important part in the creation of the sound of the album. It’s a tricky beast, but it does enable you to explore different ways of reshaping the sound that comes off the strings. I have been using it for more than thirty years, and it’s especially great at producing unusual chorus effects, polyphonic voicings and pitch glides. Again, it’d be pointless to try and reproduce the sonic textures of the original recordings – what one can do instead is to emulate the spirit of adventure, the experimental attitude which characterized the Jimi Hendrix Experience by using contemporary effects and instruments. And only a drummer as talented and versatile as Tony Bianco could deliver the goods, poised as he is between rock and jazz, tight but loose, without attempting an awkward “fusion” of the two. Jimi himself loved solid rock beats as much as free improvisation, and Mitch Mitchell was a big Elvin Jones fan. So speaking of Jimi’s music being sacred, maybe it’s more respectful to be a Hendrix “deconstructionist” than a pale epigone. The Experience never played the same song twice in the same way… Our previous Machine Mass record featured Dave Liebman on sax and flute. I hope we can get Dave to play this stuff one of these days – I’m sure he’d love it, he could bring that On the Corner vibe to Jimi’s music!
KK: Are you aware of other younger musicians who look to Jimi as a role model? He seems to operate as a consensus figure in a massively divisive musical environment.
MD: Yes, his star has not faded since his untimely death, and he has never ceased to amaze musicians from different backgrounds. Brad Meldhau recently wrote an article entitled “Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Beethoven and God”, which says it all, really. It’s a commonplace to say that his music is timeless but the reason why it feels timeless has more to do with his interpretation of the songs than with the songs themselves. Of course, there is the blues tradition, the birth of psychedelia, and all that, but his music has a deep spiritual dimension. Jimi speaks to the soul as much as to the guts. He once said music was a spiritual thing, he spoke of an “electric church” which to him meant a kind of universal power which was constantly moving like the waves of the ocean…
KK: Is there a particular song/album that is most special for you?
MD: More than any specific song or album, it is the sense of fluidity and abandon which characterizes his playing which still amazes me. Nobody looks cooler on stage than Hendrix – there is something simultaneously nonchalant and virtuosic about his playing style. His phrasing is so fluid and flowing that it never feels rushed or contrived. This should speak to every musician with ears on this planet.
JULY 2019: MACHINE MASS Summer date added to GIGS section.
APRIL 2019: The Wrong Object plays the Belgian Jazz Meeting.
FEBRUARY 22, 2019: Official release date for The Wrong Object's Into the Herd !
JANUARY 2019: click here: 2018 Annual Jazz Station Awards. Thank you Arnaldo de Souteiro!
NOVEMBER 2018: TWO plays and sings FZ - official release of Zappa Jawaka!
OCTOBER 2018: Sound wizard and guitar maestro Mark Wingfield is mastering The Wrong Object's new CD of original compositions, Into the Herd.
JULY 2018: The Wrong Object, Zappa Jawaka: the mix is in the can.
MAY 2018: We are now in a position to reveal firm news concerning the long-awaited Gödel Codex album, Oak, which will be released in January 2019 by Off Records!
MARCH-APRIL-MAY 2018: Ali e t o lo ss reading-exhibition-book-launches mini-tour taking us to Cambridge, Paris, Liège, Orléans and Bourges.
FEBRUARY 2018: official release date ofVegir, Dominique Vantomme's sonic extravaganza featuring Tony Levin on bass and Chapman Stick, Maxime Lenssens on drums, and yours truly on electric and synth guitar.
JANUARY 2018: voted one of the 10 best electric guitarists of the year 2017 as a member of Machine Mass in Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Best Jazz of 2017 (39th Annual Jazz Station Award). Machine Mass also reaches No 4 in the 2017 Instrumental Group category and "Plays Hendrix" is named one of the 25 Best Instrumental Albums of the Year.
DECEMBER 2017: Swedish publisher Trolltrumma publishes Ali e t o lo ss, a poetico-photographic collaboration with Elisabeth Waltregny. International exhibitions are planned for Spring 2018.
NOVEMBER 2017: The Wrong Object is going into the studio to record an album of FZ non-covers + some brand new original songs.
MAY 2017: Official release of Machine Mass Plays Hendrix (MoonJune Records in association with Audio Anatomy).
MARCH 2017: The Politics and Aesthetics of Hunger and Disgust is published by Routledge as part of their Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature series.
JANUARY 2017: We're in the final stages of proofeading and indexing The Politics and Aesthetics of Hunger and Disgust (to be published by Routledge in March 2017) + editing and finalizing the forthcoming studio album of The Gödel Codex.
NOVEMBER 2016: Recording with Dominique Vantomme, Maxime Lenssens and Tony "King Crimson" Levin in Hoboken (near Antwerp) with a view to a Fall 2017 MoonJune release.
NOVEMBER 2016: Listening to the first mixes of a recording session featuring Guy Segers, Catherine Smet, Joe Higham, Andy Kirk and Dirk Wachtelaer. Is this the Return of the Son of The Moving Tones?
OCTOBER 2016: my new collection of prose poems and microessays, Anything & Everything (trans. Gian Lombardo), is available from Quale Press. I also have a trilingual (Italian-French-English) chapbook coming out from Liberodiscrivere (Vol. 9 of the Versopolis collection) in Genova.
MAY 2016: The Wrong Object (and much more) on DVD - Got Canterbury? The long-awaited companion DVD to the highly acclaimed documentary "Romantic Warriors III - Canterbury Tales" is out. It features ca. 45 minutes of Wrong Object material (music & interviews) alongside live performances by the likes of Richard Sinclair, The Soft Machine, Didier Malherbe and The Muffins.
APRIL 2016: Developing Ali e t o l o ss, a new erasurist poem based on Elisabeth Waltregny's Through the Looking-Glass series.
APRIL 2016: Jon Wilkinson is in the process of mixing the new Machine Mass CD (Machine Mass Plays Hendrix).
MARCH 2016: UNDOING ART, a new essay written in collaboration with Mary Ann Caws, is at the proofs stage.
FEBRUARY 2016: New Spring and Summer dates added - click here for details.
NOVEMBER 2015: Working on a new collaboration with Tony Bianco and Paul Dunmall + preparing a Hendrix tribute with Machine Mass feat. Antoine Guenet + rehearsing some new tunes for The Wrong Object.
JULY 2015: Writing and proofreading towards completion of 4 new books: Profondo Rosso : percorsi dell’immaginario di Dario Argento, Disgust: History, Language, Politics and Aesthetics of a Complex Emotion, Literature Now: Key Terms and Methods for Literary History and Marc Atkins : A Retrospective
JUNE 2015: working on some new tunes for the Machine Mass Summer gigs
MAY 2015: greatly enjoying generating ideas and comparing notes with Mary Ann Caws for Undoing Art
APRIL 2015: just finished my book on Radiohead - it will be out for Christmas according to the latest reports
APRIL 2015: WHAT'S IN A NAME? Some people have asked me about the meaning of "The Gödel Codex" - here is what I wrote to Aad van Nieuwkerk and Pieter van Engelen a while ago: "Hello Aad and Pieter: Thanks for your notes - I am not a mathematician - I first encountered Gödel via Douglas Hofstadter's book I Am a Strange Loop, and it led to a consideration of complex loops in electronic music, which I was studying last year when the band began to rehearse (at the time I was editing a book on the uses of loops in the arts). As in Hofstadter's book Gödel's work is used both literally and metaphorically here - the idea that mathematical patterns and number theory can reveal larger truths, etc. The "codex" is a reference to the strange aura which seems to surround KG's work for experts and laymen alike. Basically, the name of the band is more indebted to Hofstadter's work than to Gödel himself. It seems appropriate to a kind of music which builds upon the idea that electronic instruments are liable to generate formal systems which contain an infinity of formal systems and that electronically-processed or generated sounds can escape our control and become like little creatures endowed with a life of their own. Also, and more fundamentally, perhaps, the name sounded great:)!"
MARCH 2015: MACHINE MASS feat. DAVE LIEBMAN's INTI is named one of the best jazz albums of the year 2014 by the JAZZIT AWARDS
FEBRUARY 2015: celebrating the New Year and the long-awaited release of Boucle et répétition: musique, littérature, arts visuels
JANUARY 2015: listen to The Gödel Codex's first live premixes here
JANUARY 2015: voted one of the 10 best electric guitarists of the year 2014 as a member of Machine Mass feat. David Liebman in Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Best Jazz of 2014 (36th Annual Jazz Station Award)
NOVEMBER 2014: working on Germano Celant's "Arts & Foods" exhibition for Milan Expo 2015
OCTOBER 2014: The Wrong Object performs in Italy for the first time in five years.
JULY 2014: Currently co-developing a repertoire of original songs for The Gödel Codex, an electro-jazz quartet featuring Antoine Guenet (Univers Zero, The Wrong Object, ...), Etienne Plumer (Rêve d'Elephant, Animus Anima, ...) and multi-media artist Christophe Bailleau
JUNE 2014: My DESERT ISLAND Discs (OPEN, Italy)
MAY 2014: THE WRONG OBJECT @ PROG'SUD FESTIVAL (Marseille)
FEBRUARY 2014 sees the official release of "INTI", MACHINE MASS's new studio album feat. DAVE LIEBMAN - to order the CD, click here
JANUARY 2014: In addition to booking 2014 dates, THE WRONG
OBJECT is getting ready for an exciting collaboration with the BRUSSELS
PHILHARMONIC under the direction of Alexander Hanson -
expect someting _real_ and _very new_ (not the usual rock-meets-classic
experience ...)
DECEMBER 2013: THE WRONG OBJECT and DOUbT featured in THE BEST JAZZ OF 2013 in Arnaldo de Souteiro's Annual Jazz Station Poll !
Special congratulations to Benoît MOERLEN (6th vibes player; The Wrong Object), Alex MAGUIRE (7th best keyboard player; douBt) and Marti MELIA (12th best clarinet player; The Wrong Object)
+ DOUbT's "Mercy, Pity Peace & Love" voted into the TOP TEN 2013 BEST INSTRUMENTAL BANDS Click here to see the results of the poll
DECEMBER 2013: A new interview on Québec e-mag PROFIL (in French). For Jean-Michel Peretti's English translation, click here.
OCTOBER 2013: MACHINE MASS feat. Dave LIEBMAN and THE WRONG OBJECT are getting a full feature article in Jazzmozaiek - many thanks to Georges Tonla-Briquet and Jos Knaepen for their help, talent and enthusiasm. Click here to read the full article.
SEPTEMBER 2013: The Wrong Object feat. Benoît Moerlen and Susan Clynes on FILM: the band will be filmed and interviewed by Jose Zegarra and his crew towards a 2014 US DVD release on the legacy of the Canterbury Scene.
AUGUST 2013: Machine Mass feat. Dave Liebman:
Inti, our new studio release will be mixed this Summer and released this Winter by MoonJune Records! Listen to a trailer here
AUGUST 2013: Pavel Borodin's film "Comicoperando in Amsterdam” was shown at the XII International Kansk Video Festival held in Kansk, Siberia, August 25–31.
JULY 2013: VPRO (Dutch National Radio) airs a 2-hour program on The Wrong Object
JUNE 2013: The Wrong Object's new album, After the Exhibition, is already
receiving rave reviews worldwide - click here for more info and selected press quotes.
MAY 2013: Jean-Pierre Goffin and Jean-Claude Vantroyen interview Michel Delville for JAZZAROUND (2013) and LE SOIR
MAY 2013 sees the publication of two new books: a collection of critical
essays entitled Crossroads Poetics & a book of prose poems, Entre la poire et le fromage.
OCTOBER 2024: Off Records will release In & Outflown, an album of previously unreleased live and studio tracks by The Wrong Object.
SEPTEMBER 2024: MoonJune Festival, Toledo, Spain. The MoonJune global Family Pic.
OCTOBER 2024: Romain Rioboo at Progscopie will produce a live in the studio session featuring Daniel "Univers Zero" Denis and Antoine Guenet alongside yours truly.
JULY 2024: The Wrong Object returns to Zappanale twenty years after their stint with Ed Mann (and sixteen years after their collaboration with Stanley Jason Zappa).
WINTER 2023-24: Starting to gear up plans for a new electro-jazz project featuring Etienne Plumer, Antoine Guenet and a heavy trumpet player. Stay tuned -
FALL 2023: The Wrong Object joins forces with guitr maestro Gary Lucas (Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart, ...) in an evening of petulant frenzy (De Oefenbunker, Heerleen, NL).
SPRING 2023: The Wrong Object performs with a trombone player (Adrien Lambinet) for the first time since their collaboration with Annie Whitehead.
JANUARY 2023: working on the French translation of our graphic essay on the photo-novel (w. Luciano Curreri, Giuseppe Palumbo and Vittorio Frigerio).
FALL 2022: busy co-organising (w. Livio Belloï) the first international conference devoted to the art of Tom Phillips.
AUGUST 19, 2022: The Gödel Codex is back on stage at the Musée de la Vie Wallonne
SPRING/SUMMER 2021: Here are some new prose poetry and photonovel-related books out there.
FEBRUARY 2021: new release: Machine Mass Sextet's Intrusion feat. Tony Bianco, Manuel Hermia, Laurent Blondiau, Antoine Guenet and Damien Campion.
AUGUST 2020: The Wrong Object feat. Manuel Hermia & Pauline Leblond @ Gaume Jazz festival
JULY 2020: Mimesis Edizioni publishes Inni di St. Bridget (a cura di Daniela Daniele), a book and a DVD featuring the music of Machine Mass.
MARCH 2020: opening of exhibition In/Between Places (ERG-Brussels) feat. "InfrAlice" and an aniùated version of "Alice in Shreds" (soundtrack by The Wrong Object), a new collaboration with Elisabeth Waltregny and Alexander Schellow.
FEBRUARY 2020: Off to a recording session with my mates Guy Segers, Joe Higham, Catherine Smets and the rest of the Eclectic Maybe Band gang.
NOVEMBER 2019: MACHINE MASS feat. Manu Hermia, Laurent Blondiau, Antoine Guenet, Damien Campion and the one and only Tony Bianco will celebrate its near 10th birthday and prepare for its 4th studio release at l'An Vert on Nov 29 !
OCTOBER 2019: Just got interviewed by award-winning writer Ken Kubernik on Machine Mass and the Jimi Hendrix legacy:
KEN KUBERNIK: Can you talk about Jimi's influence on you both as a composer and guitarist, with an emphasis on how his "sound" impacted your own approach.
MICHEL DELVILLE: Gear-wise, I am not a Strat guy (I play an Ibanez) and I don’t even own a Marshall amp anymore! That said, what I find fascinating is Jimi’s use of effects and the influence it had on the development of the band’s developing aesthetics. Are You Experienced appeared in 1967 at a time when the Octavia and the Fuzz Face were only beginning to be domesticated by a handful of musicians. The sheer feeling of discovering the gear must have been so exciting, you know, not being influenced by any established tradition, or preexisting models, but taking risks, relishing in discovering the unschooled pleasures and possibilities of making the guitar sound like a machine gun or a hurricane, or a wind instrument, or the human voice, you name it. Jimi was creating new patterns, a new grammar and a new vocabulary for a generation of listeners and guitar players who were born into conventional rhythm and blues attitudes. And, of course, his use of the wah-wah, whose first prototypes were built a year or so before the release of Are You Experienced, was hugely influential on me. I am particularly interested in how Jimi managed to transform and tweak sound in subtle and meaningful ways, you know; his solos invariably tell a good, gripping story but always tell it slant, through artful patterns and seamless transitions.
KK: Being from a later generation, when did you discover Jimi's music and did you embrace it immediately or did your interest develop over time?
MD: I have been influenced by Jimi’s music since my teens. His sonic power and boldness of gesture are a constant source of inspiration for me. His use of feedback also remains a huge influence to the extent that he never considered feedback and distortion as an end in itself but with a view to creating interesting and hitherto unheard harmonics on the electric guitar.
KK: Why this recording [Machine Mass Plays Hendrix] at this time? Did you sense a strong pull from the larger social/political forces at work that led to celebrating Jimi and his music right now? Perhaps it speaks to his timelessness and the vitality of his musical/spiritual message.
MD: Jimi’s style is mercurial, and not just in a metaphorical sense: if you try to emulate it it’ll slip through your fingers. I mean Stevie Ray Vaughan sounded great and so do many later Hendrix impersonators, but to bring something alternative to his repertoire is an altogether different affair. Very few people have sought to reappropriate his musical legacy from a different angle. I think it’s because it’s intimidating, which is probably why I did not attempt a Hendrix “tribute” until I was in my late forties. Jimi’s music is sacred to many musicians, but that shouldn’t be an obstacle to re-readings and revisitations of his works. What we attempted with Machine Mass Plays Hendrix was to rethink the power trio format, using a keyboard player rather than a bass player, deconstructing the structures of the original songs, and using the familiar themes and riffs as building blocks for groovy improvs. It’s like the Doors - or maybe the early Soft Machine - playing Hendrix while listening to Coltrane! And sound-wise, we threw in some zany electronic sounds catered by myself (on guitar and Roland synth-guitar) and Antoine Guenet, who must have used no less than six or seven different keyboards live in the studio. The Roland guitar synth I am using on the record played an important part in the creation of the sound of the album. It’s a tricky beast, but it does enable you to explore different ways of reshaping the sound that comes off the strings. I have been using it for more than thirty years, and it’s especially great at producing unusual chorus effects, polyphonic voicings and pitch glides. Again, it’d be pointless to try and reproduce the sonic textures of the original recordings – what one can do instead is to emulate the spirit of adventure, the experimental attitude which characterized the Jimi Hendrix Experience by using contemporary effects and instruments. And only a drummer as talented and versatile as Tony Bianco could deliver the goods, poised as he is between rock and jazz, tight but loose, without attempting an awkward “fusion” of the two. Jimi himself loved solid rock beats as much as free improvisation, and Mitch Mitchell was a big Elvin Jones fan. So speaking of Jimi’s music being sacred, maybe it’s more respectful to be a Hendrix “deconstructionist” than a pale epigone. The Experience never played the same song twice in the same way… Our previous Machine Mass record featured Dave Liebman on sax and flute. I hope we can get Dave to play this stuff one of these days – I’m sure he’d love it, he could bring that On the Corner vibe to Jimi’s music!
KK: Are you aware of other younger musicians who look to Jimi as a role model? He seems to operate as a consensus figure in a massively divisive musical environment.
MD: Yes, his star has not faded since his untimely death, and he has never ceased to amaze musicians from different backgrounds. Brad Meldhau recently wrote an article entitled “Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Beethoven and God”, which says it all, really. It’s a commonplace to say that his music is timeless but the reason why it feels timeless has more to do with his interpretation of the songs than with the songs themselves. Of course, there is the blues tradition, the birth of psychedelia, and all that, but his music has a deep spiritual dimension. Jimi speaks to the soul as much as to the guts. He once said music was a spiritual thing, he spoke of an “electric church” which to him meant a kind of universal power which was constantly moving like the waves of the ocean…
KK: Is there a particular song/album that is most special for you?
MD: More than any specific song or album, it is the sense of fluidity and abandon which characterizes his playing which still amazes me. Nobody looks cooler on stage than Hendrix – there is something simultaneously nonchalant and virtuosic about his playing style. His phrasing is so fluid and flowing that it never feels rushed or contrived. This should speak to every musician with ears on this planet.
JULY 2019: MACHINE MASS Summer date added to GIGS section.
APRIL 2019: The Wrong Object plays the Belgian Jazz Meeting.
FEBRUARY 22, 2019: Official release date for The Wrong Object's Into the Herd !
JANUARY 2019: click here: 2018 Annual Jazz Station Awards. Thank you Arnaldo de Souteiro!
NOVEMBER 2018: TWO plays and sings FZ - official release of Zappa Jawaka!
OCTOBER 2018: Sound wizard and guitar maestro Mark Wingfield is mastering The Wrong Object's new CD of original compositions, Into the Herd.
JULY 2018: The Wrong Object, Zappa Jawaka: the mix is in the can.
MAY 2018: We are now in a position to reveal firm news concerning the long-awaited Gödel Codex album, Oak, which will be released in January 2019 by Off Records!
MARCH-APRIL-MAY 2018: Ali e t o lo ss reading-exhibition-book-launches mini-tour taking us to Cambridge, Paris, Liège, Orléans and Bourges.
FEBRUARY 2018: official release date ofVegir, Dominique Vantomme's sonic extravaganza featuring Tony Levin on bass and Chapman Stick, Maxime Lenssens on drums, and yours truly on electric and synth guitar.
JANUARY 2018: voted one of the 10 best electric guitarists of the year 2017 as a member of Machine Mass in Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Best Jazz of 2017 (39th Annual Jazz Station Award). Machine Mass also reaches No 4 in the 2017 Instrumental Group category and "Plays Hendrix" is named one of the 25 Best Instrumental Albums of the Year.
DECEMBER 2017: Swedish publisher Trolltrumma publishes Ali e t o lo ss, a poetico-photographic collaboration with Elisabeth Waltregny. International exhibitions are planned for Spring 2018.
NOVEMBER 2017: The Wrong Object is going into the studio to record an album of FZ non-covers + some brand new original songs.
MAY 2017: Official release of Machine Mass Plays Hendrix (MoonJune Records in association with Audio Anatomy).
MARCH 2017: The Politics and Aesthetics of Hunger and Disgust is published by Routledge as part of their Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature series.
JANUARY 2017: We're in the final stages of proofeading and indexing The Politics and Aesthetics of Hunger and Disgust (to be published by Routledge in March 2017) + editing and finalizing the forthcoming studio album of The Gödel Codex.
NOVEMBER 2016: Recording with Dominique Vantomme, Maxime Lenssens and Tony "King Crimson" Levin in Hoboken (near Antwerp) with a view to a Fall 2017 MoonJune release.
NOVEMBER 2016: Listening to the first mixes of a recording session featuring Guy Segers, Catherine Smet, Joe Higham, Andy Kirk and Dirk Wachtelaer. Is this the Return of the Son of The Moving Tones?
OCTOBER 2016: my new collection of prose poems and microessays, Anything & Everything (trans. Gian Lombardo), is available from Quale Press. I also have a trilingual (Italian-French-English) chapbook coming out from Liberodiscrivere (Vol. 9 of the Versopolis collection) in Genova.
MAY 2016: The Wrong Object (and much more) on DVD - Got Canterbury? The long-awaited companion DVD to the highly acclaimed documentary "Romantic Warriors III - Canterbury Tales" is out. It features ca. 45 minutes of Wrong Object material (music & interviews) alongside live performances by the likes of Richard Sinclair, The Soft Machine, Didier Malherbe and The Muffins.
APRIL 2016: Developing Ali e t o l o ss, a new erasurist poem based on Elisabeth Waltregny's Through the Looking-Glass series.
APRIL 2016: Jon Wilkinson is in the process of mixing the new Machine Mass CD (Machine Mass Plays Hendrix).
MARCH 2016: UNDOING ART, a new essay written in collaboration with Mary Ann Caws, is at the proofs stage.
FEBRUARY 2016: New Spring and Summer dates added - click here for details.
NOVEMBER 2015: Working on a new collaboration with Tony Bianco and Paul Dunmall + preparing a Hendrix tribute with Machine Mass feat. Antoine Guenet + rehearsing some new tunes for The Wrong Object.
JULY 2015: Writing and proofreading towards completion of 4 new books: Profondo Rosso : percorsi dell’immaginario di Dario Argento, Disgust: History, Language, Politics and Aesthetics of a Complex Emotion, Literature Now: Key Terms and Methods for Literary History and Marc Atkins : A Retrospective
JUNE 2015: working on some new tunes for the Machine Mass Summer gigs
MAY 2015: greatly enjoying generating ideas and comparing notes with Mary Ann Caws for Undoing Art
APRIL 2015: just finished my book on Radiohead - it will be out for Christmas according to the latest reports
APRIL 2015: WHAT'S IN A NAME? Some people have asked me about the meaning of "The Gödel Codex" - here is what I wrote to Aad van Nieuwkerk and Pieter van Engelen a while ago: "Hello Aad and Pieter: Thanks for your notes - I am not a mathematician - I first encountered Gödel via Douglas Hofstadter's book I Am a Strange Loop, and it led to a consideration of complex loops in electronic music, which I was studying last year when the band began to rehearse (at the time I was editing a book on the uses of loops in the arts). As in Hofstadter's book Gödel's work is used both literally and metaphorically here - the idea that mathematical patterns and number theory can reveal larger truths, etc. The "codex" is a reference to the strange aura which seems to surround KG's work for experts and laymen alike. Basically, the name of the band is more indebted to Hofstadter's work than to Gödel himself. It seems appropriate to a kind of music which builds upon the idea that electronic instruments are liable to generate formal systems which contain an infinity of formal systems and that electronically-processed or generated sounds can escape our control and become like little creatures endowed with a life of their own. Also, and more fundamentally, perhaps, the name sounded great:)!"
MARCH 2015: MACHINE MASS feat. DAVE LIEBMAN's INTI is named one of the best jazz albums of the year 2014 by the JAZZIT AWARDS
FEBRUARY 2015: celebrating the New Year and the long-awaited release of Boucle et répétition: musique, littérature, arts visuels
JANUARY 2015: listen to The Gödel Codex's first live premixes here
JANUARY 2015: voted one of the 10 best electric guitarists of the year 2014 as a member of Machine Mass feat. David Liebman in Arnaldo DeSouteiro's Best Jazz of 2014 (36th Annual Jazz Station Award)
NOVEMBER 2014: working on Germano Celant's "Arts & Foods" exhibition for Milan Expo 2015
OCTOBER 2014: The Wrong Object performs in Italy for the first time in five years.
JULY 2014: Currently co-developing a repertoire of original songs for The Gödel Codex, an electro-jazz quartet featuring Antoine Guenet (Univers Zero, The Wrong Object, ...), Etienne Plumer (Rêve d'Elephant, Animus Anima, ...) and multi-media artist Christophe Bailleau
JUNE 2014: My DESERT ISLAND Discs (OPEN, Italy)
MAY 2014: THE WRONG OBJECT @ PROG'SUD FESTIVAL (Marseille)
FEBRUARY 2014 sees the official release of "INTI", MACHINE MASS's new studio album feat. DAVE LIEBMAN - to order the CD, click here
JANUARY 2014: In addition to booking 2014 dates, THE WRONG
OBJECT is getting ready for an exciting collaboration with the BRUSSELS
PHILHARMONIC under the direction of Alexander Hanson -
expect someting _real_ and _very new_ (not the usual rock-meets-classic
experience ...)
DECEMBER 2013: THE WRONG OBJECT and DOUbT featured in THE BEST JAZZ OF 2013 in Arnaldo de Souteiro's Annual Jazz Station Poll !
Special congratulations to Benoît MOERLEN (6th vibes player; The Wrong Object), Alex MAGUIRE (7th best keyboard player; douBt) and Marti MELIA (12th best clarinet player; The Wrong Object)
+ DOUbT's "Mercy, Pity Peace & Love" voted into the TOP TEN 2013 BEST INSTRUMENTAL BANDS Click here to see the results of the poll
DECEMBER 2013: A new interview on Québec e-mag PROFIL (in French). For Jean-Michel Peretti's English translation, click here.
OCTOBER 2013: MACHINE MASS feat. Dave LIEBMAN and THE WRONG OBJECT are getting a full feature article in Jazzmozaiek - many thanks to Georges Tonla-Briquet and Jos Knaepen for their help, talent and enthusiasm. Click here to read the full article.
SEPTEMBER 2013: The Wrong Object feat. Benoît Moerlen and Susan Clynes on FILM: the band will be filmed and interviewed by Jose Zegarra and his crew towards a 2014 US DVD release on the legacy of the Canterbury Scene.
AUGUST 2013: Machine Mass feat. Dave Liebman:
Inti, our new studio release will be mixed this Summer and released this Winter by MoonJune Records! Listen to a trailer here
AUGUST 2013: Pavel Borodin's film "Comicoperando in Amsterdam” was shown at the XII International Kansk Video Festival held in Kansk, Siberia, August 25–31.
JULY 2013: VPRO (Dutch National Radio) airs a 2-hour program on The Wrong Object
JUNE 2013: The Wrong Object's new album, After the Exhibition, is already
receiving rave reviews worldwide - click here for more info and selected press quotes.
MAY 2013: Jean-Pierre Goffin and Jean-Claude Vantroyen interview Michel Delville for JAZZAROUND (2013) and LE SOIR
MAY 2013 sees the publication of two new books: a collection of critical
essays entitled Crossroads Poetics & a book of prose poems, Entre la poire et le fromage.
The Wrong Object feat. Benoît Moerlen being filmed by Jose Zegarra and his crew - Mazy Culture photo (c) 2013 Susan Clynes
Machine Mass feat. Dave Liebman, _Inti_ (forthcoming from MoonJune Records) photos (c) 2013 Elisabeth Waltregny
w. The Brussels Philharmonic, Vlaams Radio Koor & Bobby Martin utdo Alexander Hanson - March 2014
