A dark duotone photograph of an empty urban stage at dusk, deep charcoal and muted teal tones, with a single microphone casting a long shadow, conveying a quiet, anticipatory mood.

on stage & in the room

LiVe

Live improvised performances, readings, and stage appearances by Malik Ameer Crumpler — a running log of dates, venues, and collaborators.

Selected Appearances

Date Event Venue / Context
October 7, 2016 Reading from the novela Irrelevant Men Gambazine
September 24, 2016 Support appearance with Berkeley Books of Paris Berkeley Books of Paris
May 2014 Street poetry Istanbul, Türkiye
April 14, 2014 Featured poet Spoken Word Paris
February 16, 2012 AMBER HYMNS Auditory Experience Happy Time, East Village

Performance Notes

Improvised sets & readings

Live work spans free-form vocal improvisation, spoken word, and audio/visual layering with glitch elements. Sets are built in the moment from prepared texts, field material, and on-site response.

Venues & contexts

Performances have ranged from bookstore stages and gallery openings to city streets and festival settings, often placed alongside literary and experimental music programs.

Continue

The live performance practice of this artist unfolds as an immersive hybrid of spoken word, free-form vocal improvisation, and glitch-inflected audio layering. Each set is constructed spontaneously, drawing from prepared texts, field recordings, and on-site sonic material to create a unique auditory experience. This approach resists fixed arrangements, embracing instead the unpredictable energy of the moment. The result is a shifting soundscape where language dissolves into texture and meaning hovers between clarity and abstraction. Audiences encounter not a rehearsed show but an evolving composition, shaped by the room, the hour, and the artist's intuitive responses to the environment around them.

Dysphoria and the poetics of othering emerge as central themes across the artist's body of work. These concepts are explored not only through lyrical content but through the very structure of the performances themselves. By fragmenting narrative and unsettling expectations, the work mirrors the experience of existing between categories, identities, and states of being. The term othering is reclaimed as a creative position, a vantage point from which to critique and reimagine belonging. Bullets of language, sharp and disorienting, are fired into comfortable assumptions, leaving space for new configurations of self and society to take root.

The sonic palette draws heavily from dreampop and experimental traditions, blending hazy textures with sharp, disruptive elements. Field recordings, glitch artifacts, and vocal manipulations sit alongside more melodic passages, creating a layered listening experience that rewards close attention. This is music that breathes and fractures, never settling into predictable patterns. The artist's background in poetry informs every decision, treating the voice as an instrument capable of both precise articulation and abstract gesture. Collaborations with other experimental musicians further expand this territory, introducing new textures and approaches with each project.

Live appearances have taken place across a range of venues and contexts, from intimate reading rooms to festival stages and international locations. Street poetry in Istanbul, featured readings at spoken word events in Paris, and auditory experiences in East Village spaces all form part of a growing performance history. These appearances are often support slots alongside other artists or part of curated programs focused on experimental literature and sound. Each venue brings its own character, influencing the material selected and the energy of the set. The artist adapts to these spaces, allowing the architecture and audience to shape what unfolds.

The practice extends beyond performance into the realm of glitch art and multimedia exploration. Visual elements accompany the audio work, incorporating distorted imagery, collage aesthetics, and digital artifacts that echo the fractured quality of the sound. This cross-disciplinary approach treats the album format as one node in a larger network of creative output. Bandcamp releases, radio sessions, and collaborative projects with labels like Connaissance des Temps and others document an ongoing inquiry into the boundaries of genre and medium. The work refuses to be contained by any single form, spilling across boundaries with deliberate, artistic intent.