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┌────────┐
────┤ Info ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Artist | Lambchop
Title | Flotus
Genre | Alternative Format | Album
Source | CDDA Time | 68:31
Label | City Slang Store | 2016
Catalog | SLANG50100 Rip | 2017
Bitrate | 226 kbps Size | 118.29 MB
Freq | 44.1 kHz Encoder | Lame 3.98.4
┌────────┐
────┤ Tracks ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
01. In Care Of 8675309 11:51
02. Directions To The Can 3:32
03. Flotus 3:29
04. JFK 5:32
05. Howe 4:05
06. Old Masters 4:43
07. Relatives #2 5:25
08. Harbor Country 3:26
09. Writer 3:41
10. NIV 4:35
11. The Hustle 18:12
┌────────┐
────┤ Notes ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Touted as 'Nashville's most fucked-up country band' by their label Merge
Records, Lambchop was arguably the most consistently brilliant and unique
American group to emerge during the 1990s. Their unclassifiable hybrid of
country, soul, jazz, and avant-garde noise seemed at one time or another to
drink from every conceivable tributary of contemporary music, its Baroque
beauty all held together by the surreal lyrical wit and droll vocal
presence of frontman Kurt Wagner. Although Lambchop's ever-rotating roster
would later expand to over a dozen members, the group formed in 1986 as a
simple three-piece teaming Wagner, guitarist Jim Watkins, and bassist Marc
Trovillion, former high school classmates already ten years removed from
the educational system. Originally dubbed Posterchild, the trio made its
earliest recordings in Trovillion's bedroom, self-releasing a series of
cassettes with titles like "I'm Fucking Your Daughter". In time, the lineup
began to grow and the band regularly performed live in and around the
Nashville area, often at the area record shop, Lucy's (not coincidentally
owned by Wagner's wife, Mary).
Since their recording debut in 1994, Lambchop have evolved from a small
combo to a veritable orchestra, complete with horns and strings. But since
the mid-2000s, Lambchop leader, songwriter, and lead singer Kurt Wagner has
been easing back on the scale of his ensemble, and 2016's "FLOTUS" is one
of the most purposefully spare albums of his career. Lambchop once
cheerfully described themselves as 'Nashville's most fucked-up country
band'. but "FLOTUS" betrays not the slightest country influence. On
"FLOTUS" - which Wagner insists stands not for "First Lady of the United
States", but "For Love Often Turns Us Still" - the languid, spectral
melodies are most often carried by pianos, synthesizers, bass, and drum
machines, easing along with the unobtrusive grace of an ambient
performance.
And Wagner treats his own voice as another instrument in the ensemble,
processing his singing through Auto-Tune that transforms his distinctive
mutter into something quite different. "FLOTUS" plays like Wagner's Bizarro
World take on smooth R&B and electronic pop, though most of this is too
laid-back to function as dance music (even though the liner notes contain
convenient BPM counts for each tune). But as different as the approach may
be, the melodies and the homey but abstract lyrics still sound like the
work of Kurt Wagner. Bookended by two extended numbers (the finale, 'The
Hustle', comes in at over 18 minutes), this music is full of emotional
warmth despite the cool surfaces, and though Wagner experimented with
electronics with his side project HeCTA, on "FLOTUS" he's found a way to
effectively fuse beats and keyboards with the slightly bent but heartfelt
persona he's carefully fashioned over time.
And while it bears little resemblance to anything in Wagner's catalog, "The
Hustle" feels like some sort of masterwork, a rueful but passionate
meditation on love and relationships that glides along on an endless pulse
that's as elemental and sustaining as the human heart. Two decades on,
Lambchop are not only still able to surprise listeners, they're doing some
of their best work at the same time, and "FLOTUS" is an unexpected triumph.
┌────────┐
────┤ Group ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘