What began as a simple gathering of friends in the early '90s has quietly become one of the South's best-kept secrets. A world away from the rest of Nashville's mainstream and "insurgent" music scene, Kurt Wagner crafts delicate, often inscrutable compositions about the myriad inconsequential things that make up our lives.
The dozen-plus players who comprise Lambchop have perfected a pastoral, sometimes Salvation Army sound that takes elements of new southern gothic artists like Smoke and Vic Chesnutt (no coincidence, since Lambchop served as Chesnutt's back-up band on 1999's The Salesman And Bernadette), and juxtaposes them over the type of strings that might normally accompany Bacharach or even grassy Brit-pop.
The opener, "The Old Gold Shoe," steps into Chesnutt territory with both feet, with Wagner evoking the Georgian's pleasant snarl over a sparse, half-speed track that builds to an odd sense of grandeur. True to form "Grumpus" changes the pace to a quirky pop number that might pass for Edwyn Collins. Other unexpected oddities include "Up With People" (named for the group of Nixon-era young repubs who championed clean living) with a cameo by the Bobby Jones Gospel Singers, and "What Else Could It Be," which features Wagner's completely twisted falsetto.
If all this has only served to confuse the issue, try visualizing a gathering of reconstruction-era miscreants playing futuristic lounge music on a rundown porch in the deep South. Get it now?
All recordings courtesy of Merge Records. ΓÇ£Up With PeopleΓÇ¥ and ΓÇ£GrumpusΓÇ¥ written by K. Wagner, courtesy Pathetic Hindsight Music, (BMI) administered by Bug Music. ΓÇ£The Book I HavenΓÇÖt ReadΓÇ¥ written by K. Wagner, C. Mayfield, courtesy of Pathetic Hindsight Music, (BMI) administered by Bug Music/MMM Music (BMI).
