Michel Delville

Michel Delville (born 1969, Liège, Belgium) is a Belgian musician, writer and critic.
Michel Delville teaches literature and comparative literature at the University of Liège, where he directs the Interdisciplinary Center for Applied Poetics. He is the author of books pertaining to comparative poetics and interdisciplinary studies (see the selected bibliography below). 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, the rank of Officer of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) I (2009), and the 2009 Prix Wernaers pour la recherche et la diffusion des connaissances.
Delville has been performing and composing alternative music since the mid-1980s. His most recent projects include The Wrong Object, 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 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.
In 2009 he teamed up with Alex Maguire and Tony Bianco to create a new power-trio, douBt. Their debut release, Never Pet a Burning Dog, featured ex-Camel, Caravan and Hatfield and the North member Richard Sinclair on guest vocals and bass. In 2010 he was invited to join and coordinate Comicoperando, 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. In 2012, Delville collaborates with the international collective 48 Cameras and Robin Rimbaud. In 2013, Dave Liebman joins Machine Mass, an electro-jazz band founded with Tony Bianco in 2010.

Selected bibliography

As author

• Radiohead: OK Computer (Paros/Rouen: Editions Densité, 2015)
• 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

• Literature Now: Key Terms and Methods for Literary History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015)
• Il grande incubo che mi son scelto: prove di avvicinamento a Profondo Rosso (Piombino: Edizioni Il Foglio, 2015)
• Marc Atkins (Liège: Collections artistiques de l'Université de Liège, 2015)
• Le dégoût: Histoire, politique et esthétique d'une émotion plurielle (Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2015)
• Boucle et repetition: musique, littérature, arts visuels (Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2014)
• 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)

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)