Lambchop has evolved so much as a band that it’s difficult to succinctly describe their 31-year-old career, which might be why many rely on outdated or incomplete descriptors.
“Many in the media also, for some reason, call us an ‘americana/alt. country band.’ I’d argue that was never accurate to begin with. And now, it seems almost laughable,” remarks songwriter and bandleader Kurt Wagner. “It’s like, ‘what does it take to be considered by your present output?”
True, the folky-twang and Del Reeves-style humor that permeated their early releases leant weight to their brazen self-labeling as “Nashville’s most fucked-up country band.” But the band has morphed through their influences, including the 70s R&B and soul exhibited on Nixon and the lush orchestral arrangements of Is a Woman and Mr. M. Their newest release, FLOTUS, expands their sound whilst paring down, a product of the band’s current tastes in contemporary hip hop and electronic acts like Four Tet, Flying Lotus, and Kendrick Lamar.
“I’d been working on writing and thinking about new recordings for a couple of years prior to getting into more electronic methods of working and it was just a natural evolution of my interests in that music and my curiosity about what might occur if I started to incorporate those ideas into what I’d be doing. It was all very primal and new when I first started experimenting.”
FLOTUS is noted for its heavy use of instruments and effects commonly found in electronic music, which also appeared in Wagner’s other music endeavors. A year before FLOTUS, Wagner worked with Lambchop/Hands Off Cuba members Ryan Norris and Scott Martin under the moniker HeCTA. Their debut album, The Diet, certainly pointed Lambchop fans towards the trends of Wagner’s muse.
“Working with HeCTA certainly broadened my horizons about what was out there musically… We pooled our knowledge and let each other bring their ideas together into songs. My only preconception about what we did was that the result had to be ‘of a song’ to some extent. Words mattered in as much as that was what I was bringing to the party and I wanted the music we made to have that connection.”
Above all, Kurt Wagner is a creator. His background stretches beyond his beginnings as a songwriter and to his visual artwork. He is an accomplished painter and studied sculpting in college. “It’s just another medium, and I’m guided by the same voices that lead one to paint or sculpt or write. Each have their charms and challenges. Each draws from the same well in your head.”
And while the changes in stylistic approach rendered the boundaries for the group obsolete, the core of Lambchop’s output remains Wagner’s unique songwriting. His lyrical style is impressionistic, with a focus on the mundane that demands both patience and introspection on the part of the listener. It’s easy to imagine him tooling around with songs as one might with a painting or sculpture, slowly manipulating pieces until the come close to conveying what he’s compelled to share.
“For me, creativity is a restlessness,” Wagner explains. “Like being hungry during the day before dinnertime. Or maybe it’s like drinking too much coffee and then trying to find a way to ramp it back.”
Being that Wagner’s wife, Mary Mancini, is the Chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, the album’s title and the previous presidential election immediately come to mind. But the record isn’t as overtly political as one might imagine.
“Politics is a part of my day-to-day, but in a personal way. It happens at the dinner table or over coffee in the morning. That’s probably true for many people today because it’s become so oppressively omnipresent.”
The title, surprisingly, is an acronym of “For Love Often Turns Us Still” (not First Lady of the United States). But even that sense of stillness is an important thought to keep in mind during these troubling times.
“We turned in the record over a year before its release and it’s now been 5 months after that. The record’s lyrical context goes even further than that. The writing, for the most part, happened in a short, condensed period 2 years ago where I was just looking at my life and world and trying to comment upon it.”
The album’s closer, “The Hustle,” is somewhat emblematic of the album as a whole. The song is an anomaly for those with preconceived notions of Lambchop and their Nashville roots. For starters, it clocks in at nearly 20 minutes. The grooves are limitless in scope and minimal in delivery. But these rich, sliding textures are held together by the latticework of Wagner’s lyrics.
“And I turned my head back to the crowd / You could almost sense their glory / And if you took just a few more steps / You could join them in the Hustle / Do the Hustle”
The music of Lambchop continues to be brave and meditative, turning a spotlight onto the ordinary that we usually take for granted. The only goal seems to be to connect with the musings of a humble few; perhaps a modern, shared fanfare for the common man.
Lambchop play Brighton Music Hall on March 28th, with support from Animal Hospital. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm. Tickets are available at $18. FLOTUS, and the recently reissued Is a Woman, are out now via Merge Records.