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Dirty Baby on CD

Limited two CD box set. 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 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; Nels Cline Singers 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 it's own right.