In 2015 Brennan formed the post-rock performance poetry group Gruppen with long term collaborator artist and musician Dean Brannagan. Gruppen combines Brennan's performances of prose and poetry with sonic explorations.

 

 

Brennan uses Gruppen to extend his research into the discursive and fluid nature of poetry as performance writing.

 

White Starr is the first album by Gruppen due for release in April 2024 .

album artwork by: Melanie Brennan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen to a sample of the album by clicking on the link here: 

https://gruppen.bandcamp.com/track/star-carr

 

In 2024, Brennan and Brannagan created the work 23 Deluge for publication and digital download.  

 

Extract: 23 Deluge, Gruppen, 2023/24

 

The printed text and sound work treats the 23 sentences that make up Leonardo da Vinci's notes on 'Of The Deluge and How to Represent it in a Picture' (1518) by mimicking da Vinci's reversed handwriting and then translating it into sonic form as morse code and spoken word. Morse Code is constituted as configurations of dots and dashes which in turn mimic punctuation (full stops and hyphens) as a language. The resultant work links printed matter to audio files held on the authors’ online Intellect platform page (link to follow). ‘23 Deluge’ simultaneously exists as a metaphor for contemporary (and potentially imminent) environmental and human catastrophe through layers of coded information whilst mining an arcane and natural philosophical reference as prophecy.

 

23 Deluge will be published in Autumn 2024 as:

 

Preston, J. et al., (2024) Performing Punctuation London: Intellect