Ah dear readers, welcome back to the Cuddle. After a re-energizing week's vacation from work, including 3 days in the Boston area (that's Rockport, MA above), it's back to the daily grind tomorrow. Before then, I would like to wax poetic on my newest musical obsession - Lambchop.
My latest love affair was spurred by reading the recent history of Merge Records, Our Noise, an oral history of the label and some of its flagship bands, primarily narrated by the label's two founders, Mac MacCaughan and Laura Ballance (who also happen to be founding members of legendary power-pop band, Superchunk). The book is a wonderful testament to the perseverance it takes to maintain an independent label in our world of major-label giants. It makes a compelling argument for bands NOT signing with a major label (and the pitfalls, loss of creative control, and nightmarish relationships related with that process).
Merge has always been home to some of our favorite bands - Spoon, The Arcade Fire, Camera Obscura (until they jumped to 4AD with My Maudlin Career), Destroyer, M. Ward, and The Magnetic Fields to name a few. It is interesting that, to survive as a label, Merge not only required the smarts that Ballance and MacCaughan provided, but the luck to have ownership of some of the past 20 years' greatest independent label hits, such as The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, Spoon's entire catalogue from Girls Can Tell onward, and The Arcade Fire's Funeral - the surprise juggernaut of the Merge catalogue.
Those bands are all fantastic, but not the focus of today's post. The band in question is Nashville's Lambchop, an ever-changing conglomerate of musicians, helmed by songwriter, lead singer, and indie-music original, Kurt Wagner. A cross between Porter Wagoner, Dean Martin, and Dan Bejar, Wagner weaves strange non-sequitors with gorgeous melodies of almost every genre. The entirety of Lambchop's discography lives on Merge (except for early, privately released material), some volumes can be hard to track down in "typical means" (i.e. independent record stores), but the Merge website has you covered - almost every disc is available through their web store (accessible here).
The Lambchop sound cannot be pinned down (although I love Merge's description most - "Nashville's most fucked-up country band"). Their songs range from chamber music dirges to funky R&B rave-ups, all fronted with Wagner's plain-speak drawl. The band isn't an "easy" one to just jump into, so, by point of explanation, some starting points (click on the titles to go to Merge's web site for samples of each song on each record) :
2000's Nixon - A broad jump into a retro-soul sound previously unexplored by the band - consistently ranked amongst Top Records of the 2000's lists. May have made this blog's list, had this writer not stumbled upon it so late in the decade. Highly recommended.
1996's How I Quit Smoking - Consistently rated as one of the band's best, this album gives a more broad swatch of the band in full force.
2002's Is A Woman - A purposeful step into more quiet, piano-driven balladry. This album is almost hushed from start to finish, with only small flourishes of saxophone, drums, bass, and guitar.
2008's OH (Ohio) - An album that matches the pastoral beauty of Is A Woman with the full band sound of How I Quit Smoking in a more mature and well-thought-out direction. Not to be missed.
2009's Live at XX Merge - I was lucky enough to find a CD copy of this disc at Newbury Comics in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It hasn't left my CD player since. The album includes an HD video of the show, shot beautifully at their performance at the Cat's Cradle. Anyone who was at there insists that Lambchop stole the show from other more high-profile label-mates such as Spoon and Superchunk. I wasn't, but can't imagine that anyone else could put on a show full of such musicianship, fire, and joy. Each song seems faster in tempo than the one that preceded it, and each song is a gem. From the off-kilter romantic observations of everyday life in "I Will Drive Slowly" to the barn burning set closer, "Give It" with its quotes of "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads, Wagner, despite minimal interaction with the audience, has them in the palm of his hand. The show is a tour-De-force and could not be more highly recommended.
Check the songs out below and please, visit the Merge Records website for more info on Lambchop and many, many other bands worth your time and cash. The label stands as a success story in a field littered with failures and the indie level.
Until next time, be well, check out the fucked-up poetry of Kurt Wagner and Lambchop, and listen.
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