We’ve reached book IV in Rupert Clervaux’s series of “Zibaldone” audio diaries, at which point we find him telling a different kind of story. 

“The first three all had very specific themes, while this one feels a little bit looser and doesn’t have just one thematic thrust,” he tells me, which maybe explains why listening feels a bit like annotating. I’m underlining, emphasizing, drawing arrows from here to there, highlighting symbols and noting motifs, realising, questioning, eureka-ing. An impressionistic meaning’s been encoded in and we’re lucky to be given the space to play that most poetic and boundless of all mental games: narrativization. 

There are no wrong answers, but Rupert offers some clues either way. If there’s any cipher here it’s “something like a meditation on the concept of ‘depth’––in all its connotative forms.” Think below the surface, (the) underground, yawning oceans, being ‘down in the dirt’, soil, roots, rootlessness, pulling at the dregs, collapse, profundity, stable and unstable horizons, distance, perspective, intuition, not to mention relative opposites: to be shallow, to be above, to be beyond. 

It’s got me thinking of Bresson’s “Bring things together that have as yet never been brought together and did not seem predisposed to be so.” His: “Dig deep where you are. Don't slip off elsewhere.” Rupert has realized these—two favourite goals of mine!—here. 

This is music that catches you at your own periphery, gives pause, has you offering a little “huh” to, asking “I wonder why” to. Again, it’s got me musing on another mindworm, this time from New York publisher and multi-sensory reading room Dispersed Holdings: “Feeling-making-knowing feedback loop; cartography of feeling; water as text, read to know the land beneath and around it, and body as reader.” 

Is it ok to offer up these other contexts out of context? I think so, because Zibaldone IV articulates a similarly swirly tone. Like, we’ve got Rebecca Solnit talking through Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” and later calling out to Michael Ruppert a ways away, and “Easy Rider” is playing in the wings. We’ve got Susan Sontag magically contextualizing Mariah Carey with poet Thylias Moss triangulating in order to sketch out (Rupert again) “something a little more interesting than wilful eclecticism or that laboured and patronising kind of pop-savvy.” 

Are we following? Whether yes or no Vanessa Bedoret follows on with a performance of a performance of Moss’s 'Water Road’: to be once or twice removed, via strange transitions, purposeful confusions, and, suddenly, seagulls. We’re on a boat with Ingeborg Bachmann—and how I wish I could actually be! But maybe thanks to this music I can as literature, films, friends, lethargy, coincidences, little mental links, eternal wormholes, lingering notions come together to imagine something better. 

Text by Natalia Panzer 
npanzer.com 

Artwork by Coline Cornélis 

Music by Rupert Clervaux 

with 
Vanessa Bedoret: voice and violin on Thylias Moss #2 
Eben Bull: trumpet and electronics on Mutual Aid and Departure from England 
Isis O’Regan; voice on Departure from England 
Nick Taylor: electronics on Chthonic ’97 
Ben Vince: saxophone and electronics on Chatsworth ’17 

Artwork by Coline Cornélis 

Warm thanks to James Marrs, as always, and Natalia Panzer 

Vanessa recreates and reads an excerpt from ‘Water Road’ by Thylias Moss. Isis reads ‘Departure from England’ by Ingeborg Bachmann (translated by Peter Filkins). This record is dedicated to both poets––with great respect and deep admiration.

Zibaldone IV of CVX

Two Changes, by Beatrice Dillon and Rupert Clervaux

'After Masterpieces' - Excerpts

To mark the tenth edition of Tanzen und Denken on LYL Radio, we're honoured to host guest appearances from two sublime practitioners of selection and mix. For the first 30 mins, Isis invites Parris, and for the second, Rupert invites Coline Cornélis...

https://soundcloud.com/parris_dj

https://soundcloud.com/colinecornelis

Full tracklist here: https://lyl.live/episode/tanzen-und-denken-9

LYL Radio: Tanzen und Denken 10 - Parris and Coline Cornélis

A selection of music, for Passa Porta's Literatuurmix series, with readings from two books that observe natural life in the realms least accessible to humankind. ‘Other Minds’ by Peter Godfrey-Smith philosophically explores the profound, sub-aquatic world of the cephalopods; while ‘The Peregrine’ by J.A. Baker examines the heightened, expansive world of birds in meticulous and poetic detail… 

“Living, as I am now, almost immersed in nature on the north-west coast of Mallorca, I found my persistent recollections of these two books were prominent and enlightening as I started to observe certain other beings, in close proximity, on a daily basis. Were I to follow in the footsteps of these two writers, the subjects of my study would have be the jellyfish Pelagia Noctiluca and the Blue Rock Thrush. The former graces these shores in greater numbers each spring, and once I’d become more acclimatised to their idiosyncratic resistance to direct contact, I learned to be happy swimming alongside and amongst them, seeing the beauty beyond the sting in their speckled pink and purple caps. The latter, with its glorious plumage fading gently from light to dark blue, and its hypnotising song, is even less keen on close interaction––lucky for me then that the rock in front of my house is a chosen home to one. We congregate daily, morning and evening, some 10 metres apart, and he’s become my trusted and most beloved neighbour.”

Literatuurmix for Passa Porta

LYL Radio: Tanzen und Denken 11

In which I celebrate the posthumous publication of David Graeber's predictably exceptional valedictory work, 'The Dawn of Everything' (co-authored with David Wengrow), featuring an excerpt from a talk given about the research into its subject matter, and some prior meditations on anarchism.

LYL Radio: Tanzen und Denken 12

Feb 18th on @laura-lies-in 

Pre-order: https://rupertclervaux.bandcamp.com/album/zibaldone-iv-of-cvx

06. Departure from England

Feb 18th on @laura-lies-in

Pre-order: https://rupertclervaux.bandcamp.com/album/zibaldone-iv-of-cvx

03. Chthonic '97 (K1CVX)

07. Chatsworth '17 (BVCVX)

05. Thylias Moss #2

04. Does Pop Culture Interest You?

02. Simple Food For Our Simple Taste

01. Mutual Aid

Improvisation from on high, fraternising with elevated explorations of the grid (and momentarily providing a setting for a Derridean meditation on the former).

LYL Radio: Tanzen und Denken 13

LYL Radio: Tanzen und Denken 14

This is an excerpt from a forthcoming cassette release on https://soundcloud.com/paralaxe-editions... 

...which will also feature performances by https://soundcloud.com/ylia, https://soundcloud.com/dania-detakon and https://soundcloud.com/perila

Every Tyrant in History (Live at Cafe Oto)

A selection of tracks from Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon's 'Studies I-XVII for Samplers and Percussion'. 

Available on LP and as a download.  All LPs come with the download included.

XIII – by Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon

XI – by Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon

X – by Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon

III – by Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon

II – by Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon

BEATRICE DILLON - Drum programming, electronics, synthesizer, bass guitar, field recordings

RUPERT CLERVAUX - Vibraphone, drums, percussion, field recordings, additional drum programming


A Different River Once - Beatrice Dillon & Rupert Clervaux

BEATRICE DILLON - Drum programming, electronics, synthesizer, bass guitar, field recordings

RUPERT CLERVAUX - Vibraphone, drums, percussion, field recordings, additional drum programming

and EBEN BULL - Pocket trumpet and zither

The Same River Twice - Beatrice Dillon & Rupert Clervaux

ZI.1 - 'Imitazione' (reading by Mara Cimatoribus)*
ZI.2 - Titled
ZI.3 - 'Menschenbeifall' (reading by Anne Tetzlaff)
ZI.4 - Ulyssean Time
ZI.5 - 'Imitaciones' (reading by Rupert Clervaux)**

Available as a 12" with a foldout poster by Coline Cornélis,
and as a download.

Rupert Clervaux: drums, percussion, vibraphone, piano, synthesizers and samplers, 
with Stephen Warrington: piano on ‘Imitazione’, and Eben Bull: saxophone on ‘Titled’.

Artwork by Coline Cornélis.

*translation by Jonathan Galassi
**translation by Jason Weiss

Zibaldone I of CVX

Rupert Clervaux & Ben Vince - at The Old Dentist (Excerpt)

This track appears on 'Compilation 2', available now as a Limited Edition cassette and download on First Terrace Records.

Artwork by addyeB.

Compilation 2

Bandcamp

Ignescent

This track is a dedication, with respect and admiration, to the poet Thylias Moss. It appears on 'Sports' - a compilation on @youth1234567890

CVX - Thylias Moss #1

Rupert Clervaux - After Masterpieces LP
Release Date - 24th May 2019
Buy - https://whities.bandcamp.com/album/after-masterpieces

On May 24th, experimental musician Rupert Clervaux releases his debut solo album ‘After Masterpieces’ on Whities. 
The record features guest performances from saxophonist and trumpet player Eben Bull, singer Sian Ahern, and renowned experimental artist Anna Homler (aka Breadwoman) whose inimitable voice ushers us into the record’s opening prelude, and out of its redemptive final piece. 

The design by Alex McCullough and Kia Tasbihgou illustrates a 1:1 scale etched steel plate; the industrially machined casing through which an abstract landscape by the late Brian McMinn is visible. The printed sleeve is a reproduction of this steel ‘breach artefact’, bound with custom produced elastic band denoting the tracklist, strapping in place an accompanying poetry chapbook to it’s outer. 

‘After Masterpieces’ sets six recitals of Rupert’s poetry in unique, unpredictable and expansive musical scenery. The enigmatic and densely compacted texts, reworked and gently honed throughout the album’s slow creation, find an aerial perspective from which a lifetime of reading, listening and thinking is carefully re-mapped. The broad thematic scope takes in aesthetics, ancient mythologies, the origins of language and music, epistemology and ecology––to name just a few––all of which remain tightly intertwined, resistant to abstraction, and imbued with a sense of inquisitive ambiguity which treats all certainty with suspicion: the listener is invited to find their own threads, draw their own conclusions and think their own thoughts––as Anna Homler once aptly said of her own work, “…it’s not didactic, it’s poetic.” 

Initially deriving its impetus from the mood and rhythm of the words, the album’s music utilises a wide-array of performance and production techniques. Clervaux draws on his full range of musical interests, creating long-form pieces that at turns support the recitals and then lead the way for the instrumental swathes within and between them. The sounds of ‘After Masterpieces’ revolve through the melodic ambience of ‘Her Fingers of Pink Light’; the dark electronics and multi-layered samples of ‘In Shadowlands of Like and Likeness’; the tentative interplay of piano and voice on ‘Damper and Drum’; and the riff-like patterned percussion and free improvisation of ‘Make Nature Speak.’ As the LP draws to a close, Homler and Bull join Rupert on ‘L’amore che Muove il Sole’—a sprawling anti-hymn, echoing the structure of ‘The Divine Comedy’, which discovers, in place of Dante’s heavenly paradise, a fragile optimism for positive change in the wreckage of failed grand narratives. 

Additional thanks go to Noel Summerville, James Marrs, Laura Lies In and Ju Canon for all their work on this project.

Rupert Clervaux - After Masterpieces LP - WHYT022

In the same way that Herbert Spencer simplified and misrepresented Darwin’s theory of evolution into his bleak and dangerous vision of social competition, so the spirit of Anarchism has been actively misrepresented and vilified by the collusive vortex of conservatism and political socialism. As that vortex gradually spins off its axis, asserting Anarchism’s real meaning might be the best possible defence against the dire wave of populism sweeping through the Euro-Atlantic world—even simply as the philosophical foundation from which organised political institutions can be formed to replace ineffective and corrupted representative electoral processes with truly democratic systems of deliberation and random selection. Here’s a less-than-random selection of tracks that hopefully capture a little of that spirit, and its disdain for the status quo––collected from the ongoing audio-bibliography that helped inform Rupert’s ‘Zibaldone III of CVX’ release on the great Berceuse Heroique last year… bookended by two of Soledad Bravo’s stirring ‘Cantos Revolucionarios’, we also find a recital of ’The Death of Kropotkin’––Herbert Read’s poem remembering Emma Goldman’s account of the Russian anarchist’s passing, along with other fragments of the ‘black and scarlet banner’.

Every Poet Knows Time: Part III on LYL (31.05.19)

"Fictions...are not falsehoods but refashionings through which analysts experiment with different scenarios, trajectories, and reversals, elaborating new values and testing different possibilities for creating more liveable worlds."   - Ruha Benjamin.

LYL Radio: Tanzen und Denken 3 (with Isis O'Regan)

This track is a contribution to 'FORTUNA', a new mini-album by https://soundcloud.com/luttolento, released on https://soundcloud.com/dunno-recordings

Rupert Clervaux

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