Événement

Norman Westberg (Swans), Conan Neutron & Secret Friends, Burned or Buried

Sun Oct 9 7:30 pm all ages $12/$15 Goverment Center, 715 East St., North Side

tickets: https://normanwestbergpittsburgh.brownpapertickets.com or at Government Center, Jerry's Records (Sq Hill) & Caliban Books (Oakland)

the return of Swans guitarist
NORMAN WESTBERG
https://normanwestberg1.bandcamp.com/

with Oakland, CA's
CONAN NEUTRON & SECRET FRIENDS
https://www.neutronfriends.com/
and Chicago's
BURNED OR BURIED
https://burnedorburied.bandcamp.com/

Best known for his work with the seminal outfit, SWANS, Westbergs output beyond that group is sprawling and restless. His name recurs and ripples through many interconnected micro-histories surrounding New York Citys music and art scenes.

From appearances in film works associated with the Cinema Of Transgression (Richard Kern/ Lydia Lunch) through to his participation in bands such as The Heroin Sheiks (with Shannon Selberg of Cows), Hidden Rifles (with Mark Shippy of US Maple), and Five Dollar Priest (with Bob Bert of Sonic Youth), Westbergs name is woven deeply in to the fabric of NY, over the past three decades. His latest album is "First Man on the Moon" with double bassist Jacek Mazurkiewicz on the Swiss label Hallow Ground.

Norman Westbergs guitar playing with SWANS has influenced a generation of musicians across genres. I can personally attest to how his particular approaches to that instrument, 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 affecting quality that drives the listener towards reductive transcendence.

His guitar, as a singular source, becomes transformed through a web of outboard processes. He transforms vibrating strings completely, taking a singular gesture and reshapes it through webs of delay, reverb and other treatments. To me, these works echo many of the concerns of American minimalism and sprawl outward towards the work of bands such as Stars Of The Lid. Norman has created a very dense and powerful statement of intent with [his] recordings and I couldnt be more pleased to have some small part in helping to share them." - Lawrence English, Australian composer and Room40 label honcho.