David Grubbs

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David Grubbs (born September 21, 1967) is an American

His 2017 album Creep Mission was described by The Quietus as "a typically playful and intellectually ambitious set – and is as good an entry into the world of Grubbs as any."^[4]

In 2018, Grubbs released Failed Celestial Creatures, a collaboration with Japanese guitarist and electronic musician Taku Unami. According to Pitchfork, the album "feels of a piece with Grubbs’ last two records under his own name, Creep Mission and Prismrose, both nominal solo releases that each features a handful of guests. On all three albums, Grubbs uses the presence of collaborators to play with drones, repetition, and improvisatory interplay, taking his style to a more intuitive place."^[5]

He operates his own label, Blue Chopsticks, which has released new and archival recordings from Luc Ferrari, Derek Bailey and Noël Akchoté, Workshop, Van Oehlen, and Mats Gustafsson. Grubbs is also known for his collaborations with writers Susan Howe, Rick Moody, and Kenneth Goldsmith, and with visual artists including Anthony McCall, Angela Bulloch, Stephen Prina, and Cosima von Bonin. He has composed the soundtracks for Angela Bulloch's installations Z Point, Horizontal Technicolour, and Hybrid Song Box.4, and his music appears in two installations by Doug Aitken. Grubbs's sound installation "Between a Raven and a Writing Desk" was included in the 1999 group exhibition Elysian Fields at the Centre Pompidou.

Grubbs's soundtrack work includes music with

From 1997 to 1999, Grubbs was a part-time instructor in the Liberal Arts and Sound departments at the

He is one of five musicians (with Steve Albini, Ken Vandermark, Damon Locks, and Ian Williams) profiled in Augusto Contento's 2012 documentary film Parallax Sounds.

Academic career

Grubbs received a B.A. degree from Georgetown University, an A.M. degree from the University of Chicago in 1991, and a Ph.D. degree in English, also from Chicago, in 2005.^[7][8]

Grubbs is Distinguished Professor of Music at

Grubbs is the author of four books for Duke University Press: Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording (2014), Now that the audience is assembled (2018), The Voice in the Headphones (2020), and Good night the pleasure was ours (2022). Now that the audience is assembled was described by The Washington Post as "a new book-length poem [that] reminds us that listening can feel stranger than dreaming."^[9] Records Ruin the Landscape has appeared in French, Italian, and Japanese translations. Grubbs is also the co-author of the collaborative artists’ books Simultaneous Soloists (with Anthony McCall, Pioneer Works Press, 2019) and Projectile (with Reto Geiser and John Sparagana, Drag City, 2021).

Personal life

Grubbs lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Cathy Bowman, and their son Emmett Bowman-Grubbs.

Selected solo discography

• Creep Mission LP/CD (Drag City/Blue Chopsticks, 2017)
• Prismrose LP/CD (Drag City/Blue Chopsticks, 2016)
• Borough of Broken Umbrellas EP (Drag City, 2013)
• P-Vine
  , 2013)
• Hybrid Song Box.4 CD (Blue Chopsticks, 2009)
• An Optimist Notes the Dusk CD/LP (Drag City, P-Vine, 2008)
• Semishigure
  2005)
• Yellow Sky split 12" picture disc with Åke Hodell (Kning Disk/Håll Tjäften, 2005)
• Fat Cat
  /P-Vine 2004)
• Comic Structure LP with artist's edition by David Shrigley (En/Of, 2003)
• Crumbling Land split 12" with
  Fat Cat Records
  , 2003)
• Rickets & Scurvy LP/CD (Drag City/Fat Cat/P-Vine, 2002)
• Act Five, Scene One (Blue Chopsticks/P-Vine, 2002)
• Thirty-Minute Raven CD (Rectangle/P-Vine, 2000)
• The Spectrum Between CD/LP (Drag City/P-Vine, 2000)
• "Aux Noctambules" 3" CD (Rectangle, 2000)
• The Coxcomb LP/picture disc (Rectangle, 1999)
• The Thicket CD/LP (Drag City, 1998)
• Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange CD (Table of the Elements, 1997)

Selected collaborations

• Failed Celestial Creatures with Taku Unami (Empty Editions, 2018)
• I Said No Doctors! with
  various artists (Dymaxion Groove
  , 2017)
• Frolic Architecture with Susan Howe CD (Blue Chopsticks, 2011)
• Souls of the Labadie Tract with Susan Howe CD (Blue Chopsticks, 2006)
• The Harmless Dust with Nikos Veliotis CD (Headz, 2005)
• Thiefth with Susan Howe CD (Blue Chopsticks, 2005)
• Off-Road with Mats Gustafsson
  CD (Blue Chopsticks, 2003)
• Loren Connors CD (Häpna
  , 2003)
• Apertura with Mats Gustafsson CD (Blue Chopsticks, 1999)

References

1. ^
   ISBN 1-84195-335-0
   , p. 522–23.
2. ^ The White Birch LP^{[permanent dead link]}
3. Allmusic
   , retrieved 2010-01-23.
4. ^ Smith, Barnaby. "Creep Mission review". The Quietus. Retrieved 16 October 2022.
5. ^ "David Grubbs / Taku Unami: Failed Celestial Creatures Album Review | Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved 2018-07-25.
6. ^ "Faculty Profile | Brooklyn College". www.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
7. ^ Plays well with others - website of the University of Chicago
8. ^
   Graduate Center, CUNY
9. ^ "Where does music end and poetry begin? David Grubbs wrote his first poem to find out". Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-07-25.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Grubbs.

• Drag City Page
• MP3s at UbuWeb
• 77 Boadrum Site Profile Viva Radio, September 2007. (Flash)
• David Grubbs interview on Ràdio Web MACBA - Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
• Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music
• Discogs page