New Nels Cline album - Dirty Baby

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      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!

Thank you for supporting great music. 