Recently, while going through a stack of old music magazines, I came across an insider’s guide to Nashville in the back pages of CMJ New Music Monthly’s February ’99 issue. The story, written by No Depression co-founder Grant Alden, features all sorts of observations and asides that make it charmingly dated — shows that never sell out, lack of traffic — along with recommendations of by-and-large long-gone restaurants, bars and venues.
A handful of places Alden gives props to happily still exist, among them Exit/In, The End, Rotier’s Restaurant, Robert’s Western World and Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack (at least its second location in South Nashville, with the original still closed indefinitely after a December fire). From the section about local bands to check out, just three remain: Paul Burch and the WPA Ballclub, Los Straitjackets, and the most prolific of them all, Lambchop.
Looking back on the ’90s, singer, songwriter and bandleader Kurt Wagner describes Lambchop at that time as less a conventional band than a collective for local musicians with an adventurous streak. Since 1990, membership in Wagner’s genre-bending group has frequently numbered 10 or more players at a time.
“What used to be my idea of what Lambchop was, was that it’s a Nashville thing — that it represented the musicians who were like-minded in Nashville,” says Wagner, speaking to the Scene by phone. “But as time’s moved on, I’ve realized that it’s possible now that we don’t have to be just Davidson County.”
When I reach Wagner, he’s just returned from Durham, N.C., home to Lambchop’s longtime label Merge Records, and where rehearsals are being held for the tour behind the group’s 13th LP This (is what I wanted to tell you). (A press release refers to it as the group’s 14th album, because “like all the other tallest buildings in the world, Lambchop skips No. 13.”) The Tar Heel State is also where the seed for This was planted in the summer of 2017, at the 50th-birthday bash for Merge head honcho and Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan. At the party, Wagner and Mac’s brother Matthew McCaughan (who has played drums and other instruments with Bon Iver and Hiss Golden Messenger, among others) got to talking analog synths.
“Somewhere along the line he mentioned working with this then-new modular synthesizer rack he had gotten, and that he was trying to experiment with a cappella voices,” Wagner says. “He asked me if I had any songs written, and I said I did. I sent one to him, he turned around and sent me back something he had made. I started messing with it, and that ended up being the title track of the new record.”
Over the next several months, the two continued with this long-distance collaboration, and an intriguing set of songs began to take shape. The resulting pieces draw on ambient electronic music and downtempo hip-hop in equal measure, with liberal use of Auto-Tune-like vocal effects carrying over from the last Lambchop release, 2016’s FLOTUS.
“I’m a pretty modern dude,” the molasses-voiced Wagner says with a big, deep laugh. “At the time I was initially talking to Matthew, I was fascinated with the way atmospheric stuff was starting to get into hip-hop, and also this sort-of-jazz stuff as well.” He points to Standing on the Corner, an up-and-coming, genre-defying Brooklyn duo, as one such group that crossed his path while working on This.
Using production and recording software Ableton Live, Wagner explains, he would take analog information from ambient noise tracks McCaughan sent, translate it into MIDI information and extract chords that he would then use to construct the songs, starting with piano. “I’ve never written like that before,” he says of this inside-out approach, “and was able to come up with some crazy changes that I never would have been able to do on my own.”
There’s a recurring use of first- and second-person address in the album’s song titles (seven of eight titles include the word “you”), and the cover features a headshot of Wagner, turned 90 degrees clockwise, with his trademark thick black specs (but without his usual trucker hat). One can soundly infer that This is an especially introspective, personal collection.
“It was written post-2016 election, you know, so there was a lot of darkness in that way,” Wagner says of the record’s somber tone. “I also turned 60 somewhere in there, so that allowed for some pause for reflection.”
The Lambchop of today, in a way, mirrors the better parts of what Nashville itself has become — no longer just a regional hub but a national one, a place in touch with its roots but not living in the past. Wagner’s current ensemble is a coterie of world-class musicians spread across cities, and Lambchop is just one of several outfits each member plays in. Related projects of the 2019 iteration include Bon Iver and Hiss Golden Messenger (McCaughan), Calexico and Justin Townes Earle (pedal-steel guitarist Paul Niehaus), Wye Oak (drummer Andy Stack), B.J. Thomas (pianist Tony Crow), and “anybody and everybody around town [bassist] Matt [Swanson] feels like playing with,” Wagner says.
With all these schedules to juggle, and because touring Europe has long been the band’s economic linchpin — they’ll head there next month — Lambchop shows in Nashville are few and far between. The most recent local appearance was at the Belcourt Theatre two years ago at the end of the FLOTUS tour, and at press time, the next one isn’t yet scheduled.
“I was hoping to have it together enough to tell you we were having an in-store at Grimey’s,” Wagner says, “but because of me wanting to present Lambchop as Lambchop with this supergroup it’s become, it is difficult to figure out when that’s going to happen. I really want to present this music live in the best way possible, and at this point in time, I’m willing to wait for that.”
*Update: After this issue went to press, Lambchop announced a show at Grimey's. They'll play at 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 24.
