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The Wrong Object

Blending psychedelic jazz with modern rock sensibilities, the music of the Wrong Object is influenced by a vast array of artists ranging from Canterbury Scene prog rock à la Soft Machine and Gong to Béla Bartok, Aka Moon, Charlie Mingus and Frank Zappa. While their repertoire contains mainly original compositions, they also play a special set of Zappa covers on demand.

Since its creation in early 2002, The Wrong Object has played some forty gigs in various venues ranging from small pubs to big festivals. Some of them were augmented by guest performances by the likes of Ed Mann, Elton Dean, Harry Beckett, Marc Mangen, Domguè, Marco Maurizi, Nicolas Ankoudinoff, Clementine Gasser, Frogg Café, Jaap Blonk, and pataphysician-poet-vocalist Andrew Norris, whose work with the band culminated in a show held at the Galerie 2016 in Brussels on the occasion of Serge Vandercam's 79th birthday.

After a successful mini-tour of the UK, they performed at the 2004 “Zappanale” festival where they played a special gig featuring Zappa's legendary percussionist Ed Mann, with whom they also hope to play a few more dates soon. The Wrong Object have since then played in many different countries (including England, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Czekia, Slovakia, Luxembourg and even Belgium) and their live recordings have been favorably reviewed and aired by radio stations across the globe. They will continue to perform in pubs, clubs and theaters next year and will play Summer festivals abroad. Their next projects “Elton Dean Meets The Wrong Object” and “The Wrong Object feat. Harry Beckett” saw the light in the Fall of 2005. Their 2009 studio album, "Stories from the Shed" was released by MoonJune Records (www.moonjune.com) to huge critical acclaim.

In 2010, The Wrong Object morphed into a sextet and the band's current line-up is Michel Delville (who founded the band in 2002 and who has authored nearly all of its published work[1]) on guitar, guitar-synth, voice and compositions, Marti Melia on saxophones and clarinet, Antoine Guenet on keyboards, Pierre Mottet on bass and electronics, and Laurent Delchambre on drums.

In 2013, The Wrong Object released "After the Exhibition", a studio album featuring new compositions by Delville, Guenet, Mottet and Delchambre and featuring guests Benoît Moerlen and Susan Clynes.

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6
Extended Analysis

The Wrong Object: After the Exhibition

Read "The Wrong Object: After the Exhibition" reviewed by Dave Wayne


Sometime during the late 1960s, adventurous European rock musicians led by the likes of Gong, Soft Machine, Magma, and Arzachel began incorporating elements of avant-garde jazz, contemporary classical and various ethnic musics into their own original progressive rock music. The result varied somewhat from region to region, but the most important thing was that very little of this hybrid music fit neatly into the existing parameters of fusion music, then known generically as jazz-rock. Sure, there were stacks of analogue ...

6
Album Review

The Wrong Object: After the Exhibition

Read "After the Exhibition" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Wrong Object is a Belgian band that has made significant inroads to accomplishing an exalted presence in the jazz-rock and progressive rock communities. The band's sound and strategy encompasses intermittent nods to the fabled British Canterbury progressive-rock scene with inferences to Frank Zappa and jazz-rock extrapolations akin to vintage Soft Machine. Toss in a few Albert Ayler-esque sorties and guitar whiz Michel Delville's psychedelics, and you have the complete package. Best of all, the sextet has developed a patented sound ...

220
Multiple Reviews

The Wrong Object Come of Age

Read "The Wrong Object Come of Age" reviewed by Nic Jones


There's no risk of hyperbole in stating that The Wrong Object come of age over the course of these two discs. Platform One is the earlier of the two and it finds the band in febrile form in the company of esteemed guests trombonist Annie Whitehead and trumpeter Harry Beckett, two players whose efforts have over the years lifted countless British jazz albums onto another plain. In light of this, Stories From The Shed is perhaps a set of greater ...

431
Album Review

The Wrong Object: Stories from the Shed

Read "Stories from the Shed" reviewed by John Kelman


If Platform One (Jazzprint, 2007) found Belgium's The Wrong Object on a roll following The Unbelievable Truth (MoonJune, 2007), then Stories from the Shed positions them as one of today's busiest groups. Three records in one year is impressive enough, but Stories is notable because, while the others were collaborations with British jazzers Annie Whitehead (trombone), Harry Beckett (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Elton Dean (saxophone), Stories is TWO sans guests, proving that it can stand just fine on its own. ...

397
Album Review

The Wrong Object featuring Annie Whitehead and Harry Beckett: Platform One

Read "Platform One" reviewed by John Kelman


Belgium's The Wrong Object is on a roll. An album as strong as The Unbelievable Truth (MoonJune, 2007), documenting a first (and, sadly, only) encounter in 2005 with the late British saxophone legend Elton Dean, would be more than enough for any group in any year. But with Platform One, this intrepid art/rock group teams with another legend--trumpeter Harry Beckett, born in Barbados but a fixture on the British scene since the 1950s--and trombonist Annie Whitehead, who may not be ...

371
Album Review

Elton Dean & The Wrong Object: The Unbelievable Truth

Read "The Unbelievable Truth" reviewed by John Kelman


In the world of improvised music the energy of a first meeting can often be better than when there's been adequate prep time. British saxophonist Elton Dean's collaboration with the Belgium group The Wrong Object wasn't meant to be impromptu. And with Dean and the improvisational jazz/art rock quintet having exchanged scores for the October 18, 2005 performance documented on The Unbelievable Truth, it isn't as if either party had no preparation. But unexpected circumstances scuttled a pre-show rehearsal, so ...

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Recording

The Wrong Object Returns with "After the Exhibition" (MoonJune)

The Wrong Object Returns with "After the Exhibition" (MoonJune)

Source: Leonardo Pavkovic

Belgian prog heavyweights The Wrong Object make a spectacular return to center stage, with a studio album of brilliant original compositions — and monumental significance! After a five-year absence, After The Exhibition showcases a variety of fresh, powerful material, masterfully delivered by a capable, cohesive new lineup. With their aesthetics still rooted in an array of storied inspirational models, The Wrong Object ventures further into hybrid musical territories — pushing the boundaries of progressive jazz, rock and contemporary music; yielding ...

'After the Exhibition' is the Wrong Object's most diverse and arguably strongest outing thus far. - Dave Lynch, AllMusic

"A solid hour of brilliance, with some new discoveries and revelations awaiting the listener on every repeat play. Every song here is an adventure, but wherever they go melody reigns supreme, and there's always something interesting going on rhythmically." –Peter Thelen, Expose (on "After the Exhibition")

The title [The Wrong Object Play Zappa and a few Tunes of their Own] is no idle boast: Michel Delville, leader and guitarist of The Wrong Object from Liège, 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: an intelligent handling of the Zappa/King Crimson legacy, a tradition that questions the power of rock with musical, rather than moral, means. The clever title 'Cunnimingus' indicates where this group is coming from, as does Andrew Norris' surreal, warped curses versus George W Bush on 'King Kong'". — Ben Watson, HIFINews (May 2004)

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Charles Mingus
bass, acoustic
Soft Machine
band / ensemble / orchestra
Jaga Jazzist
band / ensemble / orchestra

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

INTO THE HERD

MoonJune Records / Off
2019

buy

After the Exhibition

MoonJune Records
2013

buy

Stories from the Shed

MoonJune Records
2008

buy

The Unbelievable Truth

MoonJune Records
2007

buy

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