Biography
Fievel Is Glauque, the Belgian-American duo, merges intricate jazz textures with airy vocal lines shaped by bossa nova and yé-yé traditions. Their debut, God’s Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess, surfaced in 2021 as a mono cassette recording. Flaming Swords followed in 2022 after a single-night live-in-studio session, while the more expansive Rong Weicknes appeared in 2024; that set captured three live takes—one without a click track—then assembled them during mixing to produce its characteristically unbalanced sound.
Zach Phillips, a multi-instrumentalist focused on piano and raised in Brattleboro, Vermont, encountered vocalist Ma Clément during a 2018 songwriting visit to Brussels. Mutual acquaintance Eric Kinny, a pedal steel player, arranged their introduction once Phillips expressed interest in finding a singer. Clément, then training as a nurse after periods in France and Germany, treated Phillips for a head injury he had sustained shortly before they met. Shared musical tastes further connected them; Phillips spoke enthusiastically to Clément about White Noise’s 1969 album An Electric Storm, which he had discovered at age 15 in his parents’ basement and which proved personally transformative. Saxophonist Eléonore Kenis proposed the project name Fievel Is Glauque, drawn from the unsettling look of the mouse in Don Bluth’s 1986 animated feature An American Tail. Both Kinny and Kenis appeared in the group’s original nonet, which cut its earliest recordings in Brussels during late 2018.
By then Phillips already carried experience across Vermont and New York experimental circles. He operated OSR Tapes from 2007 to 2017 and, starting in 2011, performed and recorded as Blanche Blanche Blanche with Sarah Delaney Smith. After relocating to Brooklyn he formed a friendship with Quentin Moore and contributed to both Big French albums—2013’s Downtown Runnin’ and 2017’s Stone Fish. Before Fievel Is Glauque existed, Phillips had participated in the release, performance, or production of more than one hundred albums. The 2012 Blanche Blanche Blanche cassette Open Session Rock, for instance, reflected his inclination to record with shifting groups of musicians in order to preserve the immediacy of fresh collaborations.
Between 2018 and 2020 Phillips and Clément worked through rehearsals, recordings, and live performances with five separate ensembles across Brussels, New York, Los Angeles, and Tournefeuille, France, involving at least twenty-five jazz musicians. Professional-studio sessions from that span reportedly yielded material sufficient for five albums, yet the pair ultimately selected standout rehearsal takes captured on a mono cassette recorder. Those compact, lo-fi tracks were mastered by Ryan Power, a former Phillips bandmate who played guitar at the New York session, and became the 2021 debut God’s Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess on Phillips’ own La Loi imprint. That release, containing twenty tracks across thirty-five minutes, also marked the first appearance of his solo album Feed a Pigeon, Breed a Rat the same year. A 2022 vinyl edition on London’s Kit Records further elevated the duo’s visibility.
La Loi next issued the EP Aérodynes, which unusually incorporated overdubs, occasionally veered toward indie pop, and adopted a more spacious, relaxed atmosphere than prior work. Issued in a limited physical edition, the EP was removed from digital platforms within a month. In September and October 2022 Fievel Is Glauque toured extensively across the United States alongside Stereolab; a double A-side single pairing “Go Down Softly” with “The River”—a rescued Blanche Blanche Blanche song previously considered for Aérodynes—was released to accompany those dates through MATH Interactive. November brought the second album, Flaming Swords, a dense, live-in-one-night septet recording made at Brussels’ La Savonnerie that leaned toward math rock while prominently featuring Kinny’s pedal steel.
For October 2024’s Rong Weicknes the lineup shifted to Phillips, Clément, Flaming Swords drummer Gaspard Sicx, Thom Gill on guitar, Logan Kane on bass, Daniel Rossi on percussion, André Sacalxot on saxophone and flute, and Chris Weisman on guitar and electric sitar. Tracked at The Outlier Inn farm and studio in upstate New York during a week in July and August 2023, the album was recorded “live in triplicate,” employing two full live performances plus a third, “antagonistic” take without a click track. The three versions were then edited subtractively over an extended mixing period—credited to recording, mixing, and mastering engineer Steve Vealey—producing its distinctive off-balance character. Rong Weicknes served as Fievel Is Glauque’s debut on the Fat Possum label.
Zach Phillips, a multi-instrumentalist focused on piano and raised in Brattleboro, Vermont, encountered vocalist Ma Clément during a 2018 songwriting visit to Brussels. Mutual acquaintance Eric Kinny, a pedal steel player, arranged their introduction once Phillips expressed interest in finding a singer. Clément, then training as a nurse after periods in France and Germany, treated Phillips for a head injury he had sustained shortly before they met. Shared musical tastes further connected them; Phillips spoke enthusiastically to Clément about White Noise’s 1969 album An Electric Storm, which he had discovered at age 15 in his parents’ basement and which proved personally transformative. Saxophonist Eléonore Kenis proposed the project name Fievel Is Glauque, drawn from the unsettling look of the mouse in Don Bluth’s 1986 animated feature An American Tail. Both Kinny and Kenis appeared in the group’s original nonet, which cut its earliest recordings in Brussels during late 2018.
By then Phillips already carried experience across Vermont and New York experimental circles. He operated OSR Tapes from 2007 to 2017 and, starting in 2011, performed and recorded as Blanche Blanche Blanche with Sarah Delaney Smith. After relocating to Brooklyn he formed a friendship with Quentin Moore and contributed to both Big French albums—2013’s Downtown Runnin’ and 2017’s Stone Fish. Before Fievel Is Glauque existed, Phillips had participated in the release, performance, or production of more than one hundred albums. The 2012 Blanche Blanche Blanche cassette Open Session Rock, for instance, reflected his inclination to record with shifting groups of musicians in order to preserve the immediacy of fresh collaborations.
Between 2018 and 2020 Phillips and Clément worked through rehearsals, recordings, and live performances with five separate ensembles across Brussels, New York, Los Angeles, and Tournefeuille, France, involving at least twenty-five jazz musicians. Professional-studio sessions from that span reportedly yielded material sufficient for five albums, yet the pair ultimately selected standout rehearsal takes captured on a mono cassette recorder. Those compact, lo-fi tracks were mastered by Ryan Power, a former Phillips bandmate who played guitar at the New York session, and became the 2021 debut God’s Trashmen Sent to Right the Mess on Phillips’ own La Loi imprint. That release, containing twenty tracks across thirty-five minutes, also marked the first appearance of his solo album Feed a Pigeon, Breed a Rat the same year. A 2022 vinyl edition on London’s Kit Records further elevated the duo’s visibility.
La Loi next issued the EP Aérodynes, which unusually incorporated overdubs, occasionally veered toward indie pop, and adopted a more spacious, relaxed atmosphere than prior work. Issued in a limited physical edition, the EP was removed from digital platforms within a month. In September and October 2022 Fievel Is Glauque toured extensively across the United States alongside Stereolab; a double A-side single pairing “Go Down Softly” with “The River”—a rescued Blanche Blanche Blanche song previously considered for Aérodynes—was released to accompany those dates through MATH Interactive. November brought the second album, Flaming Swords, a dense, live-in-one-night septet recording made at Brussels’ La Savonnerie that leaned toward math rock while prominently featuring Kinny’s pedal steel.
For October 2024’s Rong Weicknes the lineup shifted to Phillips, Clément, Flaming Swords drummer Gaspard Sicx, Thom Gill on guitar, Logan Kane on bass, Daniel Rossi on percussion, André Sacalxot on saxophone and flute, and Chris Weisman on guitar and electric sitar. Tracked at The Outlier Inn farm and studio in upstate New York during a week in July and August 2023, the album was recorded “live in triplicate,” employing two full live performances plus a third, “antagonistic” take without a click track. The three versions were then edited subtractively over an extended mixing period—credited to recording, mixing, and mastering engineer Steve Vealey—producing its distinctive off-balance character. Rong Weicknes served as Fievel Is Glauque’s debut on the Fat Possum label.
Albums
