Dbuk Slimcessna's Autoclub, Norman Westberg Swans, Armadillos

DBUK (Slim Cessna's Auto Club) [hidden] Norman Westberg (SWANS) [hidden] special guests The [hidden] on sale at Juke Records (Bloomfield), Caliban Books (Oakland), Jerry's Records (Sq Hill), Dave's Music Mine (S Side)-DBUK are an offshoot of Denver band Slim Cessna's Auto Club. They were on the Alternative Tentacles label for a while, and have since founded SCACUNINCOPORATED., which has released the new album "Songs Nine Through Sixteen". Their debut "Songs One Through Eight" was also reissued in January.In Europe, Glitterhouse will release the music from both releases on a double CD and gatefold double LP. For the sadly uninitiated, DBUK consists of the four core members of Denver’s Slim Cessna’s Auto Club: Munly J Munly, Slim Cessna, Lord Dwight Pentacost and Rebecca Vera. SCAC have spent the last two decades honing a lethal mix of country blues, gospel shouting, rock & roll and folk, becoming one of the best-known, critically acclaimed bands to rise from the musical community that brought us the likes of 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand.DBUK exists on its own musical plane. Haunting, warped murder ballads come with a louche, anti-spiritual cast. Limerence and longing co-exist with casual cruelty in compositions that feature a remarkable amount of detail of the natural world; they often begin sparingly, building into an ecstatic reverberation of instruments and voices. Reverb and shake rattles abound, lending a spaghetti western vibe on songs written by Munly J Munly, whose dark humor fills the record lest anyone mistake the menace for malice.On the first single, “In San Francisco Bay", melodica unwinds a tango melody combined with four-part vocals, hopscotched by truly demented chants. The arrangements on Songs Nine Through Sixteen are complex, layered, menacing and gorgeous. Standouts include “From the Estate of John Denver”, “Bonnie Clyde the Big Bull Hen of the Women’s Prison”, “Deerslayer” and “The Misrepresentation of the Thompson Gun”. The latter wouldn’t have been out of place on the standout Nick Cave album, Murder Ballads.[hidden] Westberg is a guitarist from Detroit best known for his work with Swans. Present through almost the entirety of the band's existence, Westberg was brought on for Swans' debut album Filth (1983) and appeared on every album through 1991's White Light From the Mouth of Infinity (he also played on the 1995 album The Great Annihilator). Westberg became a full-time Swans member once again when Michael Gira reactivated the group in 2010.Westberg's playing can also be heard on many Swans side projects, including The Body Haters and solo albums by Jarboe. Before Swans, he was a member of Carnival Crash. Westberg was for a short time a member of The Heroine Sheiks with Shannon Selberg (ex-The Cows) as well as John Fell (ex-China Shop). Aside from the present incarnation of Swans, he currently plays in the NYC bands NeVAh (with Vinnie Signorelli & Algis Kizys) and Five Dollar Priest (with Ron Ward of Speedball Baby & Bob Bert among others). He also appeared (credited as Norman Westburg) in a short film The Right Side of My Brain directed by Richard Kern and starring Lydia Lunch.In 2012, Westberg made two limited edition solo releases available at his webstore. Plough is a four-track EP recorded from 2006 to 2009 and features Westberg coupling guitar with banjo and DX drum machine. Limited Edition of 75 features one fifteen-minute-long ambient piece and is packaged in one-of-a-kind imagery, each disk being decorated with a unique MRI from a CD Westberg was given in hospital. Both CD-Rs are packaged in handmade sleeves, Plough with a signed inner and Limited Edition of 75 signed and numbered on the disk itself.In 2014, Westberg released a third limited edition solo CD entitled 13, which was then reissued through the ROOM40 record label the following year.A note from Lawrence English: "Norman's guitar playing with SWANS has influenced a generation of musicians across genres. I can personally attest how his particular approaches to that instruments, in creating both harmony and brute force, have challenged and ultimately influenced my own sonic preoccupations. What Norman has created with his solo works is an echoing universe of deep texture and harmonic intensity. His solo compositions generate an affective quality that drives the listener toward reductive transcendence. His guitar, as singular source, becomes transformed through a web of outboard processes. He transforms vibrating strings completely, taking singular gesture and reshaping it through methods of delay, reverb and other treatments. To me, these works echo many of the concerns of American minimalism, sprawling outward towards the work of bands like Stars of the Lid. Norman has created a very dense and powerful statement of intent with these recordings, and I couldn't be more pleased to have some small part in helping to share them." More Info below.