New Nels Cline album - Dirty Baby - Progressive Rock Music Forum

DIRTY BABY CD boxed set by NELS CLINE
DIRTY BABY hits the streets TODAY, October 12th. You can listen to tunes and get a sneak peek at DIRTYBABY.TV

Born of a provocative mating of art and music, DIRTY BABY is guitarist/composer Nels Cline and poet/producer David Breskin's visionary recontextualization of Ed Ruscha's "censor strip" paintings. This sumptuous double-CD box set includes more than an hour-and-a-half of new music by Cline for two large ensembles, paired booklets with reproductions of 66 Ruscha pictures, and insightful liner notes by Nels in a third booklet graced by session photos. Supporting musicians include Jon Brion; cohorts Scott Amendola and Devin Hoff; Nels' twin brother Alex Cline; and some of L.A.'s most illustrious instrumentalists and improvisers. Cline's orchestrations offer a panoply of sound and vision: from pedal steel and cigarbox guitars to harmonica, banjo ukulele, violin, cello, saxophone and trumpet, all the way through Cline's mysterious Quintronics Drum Buddy. In both composition and execution, this is a recording of ambition, scope and surprise: it sheds new light (and new sound) on Ruscha's groundbreaking images, and provides a major feast in its own right. And check it out on the iTunes jazz homepage today!

But wait...It's also a beautiful art book with poetry and music!
This larger, more sumptuous sibling of the CD boxed set not only has bigger, more beautiful versions of Ruscha's pictures, it also contains ghazals by poet/producer David Breskin. Be one of the first 15 people to buy it from us and your book will be autographed by artist Ed Ruscha, guitarist/composer Nels Cline, and poet/producer David Breskin.

A collaboration between an artist, a guitarist, and a poet, this multimedia work is at once spirited, sensuous, and acutely intelligent.

DIRTY BABY is a provocative "trialogue" between the paintings of Ed Ruscha, the music of Nels Cline, and the ghazals of David Breskin. The title derives from the notion that when different art forms come together and mate, their offspring is no purebred, but rather muttish and raunchy: gloriously dirty.

The 66 Ruscha pictures in the book are drawn from two rarely-seen bodies of work, the Silhouettes and the Cityscapes, in which Ruscha uses censor strips (what he calls "dumb blocks") in place of the words which normally occupy a prominent place in his pictures. With no words visible, DIRTY BABY is a most unusual Ruscha book. However, the very fact of their obfuscation gives the missing words a powerfully subversive presence: language is emphasized even as it is obscured. The book itself is divided into two "sides" in the manner of a vinyl record: Side A offers a time-lapse history of the Western world (from primeval flora through postmodern suburb) and Side B returns to the very "cradle of civilization" to chart the American misadventure in Iraq.
For his poetic form, Breskin uses the ancient Arabic ghazal. Tightly structured-with rhyme, refrain, and meter-the ghazal proves a perfect foil and fencing partner for Ruscha's language-sensitive pictorial strategies, and the poems serve as powerful companions to Ruscha's gorgeously reproduced paintings. To this mix Cline adds more than an hour-and-a-half of new music, by turns lyrical and heartfelt, edgy and raucous, for two large ensembles. For Side A, he offers one extended composition for a nonet, which evolves from acoustic impressionism to a deep, dense electronic groove. For Side B, he pairs each image with its own epigrammatic, evocative accomplice, using a ten-piece ensemble complete with strings and horns.

In all, DIRTY BABY creates a complete synaesthetic experience: a radical recontextualization of Ruscha's work, in vibrant conversation with Cline's music and Breskin's verses. Housed in a luscious, multilayered slipcase and including four CDs (two of music and two of spoken-voice poetry), this polyphonic book is a wild surprise produced by three of the most exciting artists working today.

Indiejazz Going Out of Business Sale!
For 6 years Cryptogramophone has owned and operated Indiejazz.com. It has been a destination on the web for people interested in buying CDs of creative jazz. Sadly, we will be closing down Indiejazz at the end of the year so we can devote more time an energy to making music. For a limited time, you can get 20% off all purchases by entering the promo code GOOB at checkout. This even includes your purchase of DIRTY BABY the CD and book. Take advantage of this great offer while it lasts!

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