Description:
ARTiST: Lambchop
ALBUM: OH (Ohio)
BiTRATE: 180kbps avg
QUALiTY: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.97 Final / -V2 --vbr-new / 44.100Khz
LABEL: City Slang
GENRE: Indie
SiZE: 96.55 megs
PLAYTiME: 1h 10min 20sec total
RiP DATE: 2008-09-27
STORE DATE: 2008-09-26
Track List: Disc #1/2
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01. Ohio 2:24
02. I'm Thinking Of A Number 4:50
(Between 1 and 2)
03. National Talk Like A Pirate Day 6:18
04. Slipped Dissolved And Loosed 5:59
05. A Hold Of You 5:38
06. Sharing A Gibson With Martin 4:34
Luther King Jr.
07. Of Raymond 3:02
08. Please Rise 3:39
09. Popeye 6:18
10. Close Up 3:52
11. I Believe In You 3:27
Track List: Disc #2/2
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01. Please Rise (N) 3:47
02. Slipped And Dissolved (R) 5:15
03. Chelsea Hotel #2 3:19
04. Close Up (R) 4:52
05. Of Raymond (R) 3:06
Release Notes:
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From the front, the house in the quiet Nashville suburb where Kurt Wagner has
lived the last thirteen years looks the same now as it did when he first moved
there. The pillared porch still faces out over a patchy lawn to a small
industrial warehouse on the other side of the road. The chair in which Kurt has
composed so many of his songs stands to the left, an ashtray overflowing with
butts nearby. His beloved veteran pickup truck remains in the drive, while
sounds from nearby traintracks occasionally punctuate the birdsong. Inside,
though the front room is much as it was – shaded from the sun, comfy armchairs
showing their age –back where the small kitchen used to lead through a rickety
screendoor to a second porch and yard there’s now a whole new living area,
freshly sanded floors reflecting the golden Tennessean light. What used to be a
splintered deck is now a grand veranda. And while the staccato tap of their
toenails on the boards sounds the same, his dogs are different too: Lucy and
Jack long gone, replaced by Sydney and Louise.
So much has changed since Kurt first led LAMBCHOP out of the basement downstairs
where they rehearse. Back then they were a ramshackle outfit, a charming
drinking buddy collective taking the music they heard around them in Music City
– the butt of jokes amongst the critical elite at the time – and mixing it with
the music that they loved, Wagner topping it all off with his weird, abstract
lyrics about a “soaky in the pooper” and cowboys on the moon. They were a
curiosity: the fact that anyone would want to release the album they recorded as
great a surprise to the band as anyone. Perhaps, if it had not been picked up by
a small group of fervent fans and critics seduced by what the band archly called
‘The New Sound Of Nashville’, it would have been their only album.
Yet now, almost two decades later, LAMBCHOP return with their tenth, OH (ohio).
The musical landscape could hardly be more different. Nashville is ‘cool’ again:
Jack White has bought a home there, Kings Of Leon are a household name, Harmony
Korine directs Budweiser commercials featuring LAMBCHOP’s William Tyler at
Springwater (the legendary dive where LAMBCHOP and many other local bands cut
their teeth), David Berman has revitalized his Silver Jews in the city
(borrowing two members of LAMBCHOP, we might add) and Be Your Own Pet have
cornered the teenage punk market.
LAMBCHOP, however, have continued to follow their own path, untouched by the
world around them, unhindered by notions of ‘cool’. Few bands succeed in making
it this far into their career, and rarely on their own terms. But LAMBCHOP,
alongside other likeminded but diverse acts like Wilco and Sonic Youth, continue
to pursue their own path and release challenging, mould-breaking records. It is
this singleminded approach that has made Wagner such a figurehead for local
musicians: he’s viewed as a patriarch to whom younger artists turn for advice
and encouragement. LAMBCHOP are now considered part of Nashville’s alternative
establishment, an inspiration for the growing independent scene that flourishes
alongside the prevalent country music tradition. The unique sound that they have
refined over the years is now one that artists from around the world travel to
the city to replicate with sometime member and producer Mark Nevers: Will Oldham
aka Bonnie Prince Billy, Tindersticks, Andrew Bird, Howe Gelb and even Candi
Staton have recorded at The Beech House, Nevers’ studio cum bungalow. Wagner too
has collaborated with a host of successful artists, from Josh Rouse (whose
profile as a young songwriter was considerably raised by the mini album they
recorded together, Chester) to downtempo mainstays Morcheeba, from dancefloor
masters X-Press 2 to rising fellow Nashville chanteuse Cortney Tidwell. Hell,
the word ‘Lambchop-esque’ is now thrown around freely and gleefully by critics
to define a particular musical or vocal style, most recently at My Morning
Jacket, whose Evil Urges at times sounds not unlike some of Lambchop’s
breakthrough album Nixon. Not bad for a band who, for many years, numbered more
people on stage than in the audience for hometown shows.
OH (ohio) continues the tradition, revealing its charms and nuances with their
customary modesty. Change is a subtle thing in LAMBCHOP’s world, but just
because it’s not always obviously apparent doesn’t mean that nothing’s
different. Wagner is simply a great believer in the natural pace of life. Even
if the transformation is not immediately evident, each successive record they’ve
released has represented a new stage in the evolution of their distinctive
sound. It’s a natural process which has seen them progress from their shambolic
early recordings on Jack’s Tulips / I Hope You’re Sitting Down to the offkilter
pop experimentalism of What Another Man Spills on to the joyful soul of Nixon
and then, pointedly, its polar opposite, the piano-led minimalism of Is A Woman.
Most recently Damaged saw Wagner leave the porch from which he had viewed the
world for so long and start looking inside himself, his dark meditations on
mortality and human frailty matched by a band capable of taking delicacy to
delicious new heights.
Every record has been a step forward, on reflection notably so, and yet LAMBCHOP
remain somehow a constant entity, refining their trade, their familiarity a
source of comfort, their continued survival in an increasingly turbulent music
business a cause for celebration. OH (ohio) continues this expansion of their
horizons: its highlights include the slow motion Philly soul of ‘Slipped
Dissolved and Loose’, the shuffling shimmer of the brilliantly titled ‘National
Talk Like A Pirate Day’, the somber majesty of ‘Please Rise’ and the intimate
sentiment of ‘Close Up’. Melodically stronger than ever – ‘A Hold Of You’’s
gentle hook, the wordplay of ‘Please Rise’ matched by a heartbreaking simplicity
– it also sees their trademark leisurely pace imbued with a notion of beat and
movement driven by recent recruit Scott Martin’s drumming, most notably on
‘Popeye’’s surprising, almost funky coda.
LAMBCHOP have always evolved, adapted and tested themselves. OH (ohio) follows
this pattern in typically oblique but deeply satisfying ways. For starters it
features a new producer, Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo, Sleater Kinney, Freedy
Johnson), who split duties with Mark Nevers. “This is the first record where
I've written and picked the songs and chose the producers to make it, then
stepped away,” Wagner notes, often employing them to work on different versions
of the same songs and then picking the most successful.
He also acknowledges that the fundamental nature of the band itself has altered.
“The last five years have been about a distillation of the collective into a
core band: Tony Crow (piano), William Tyler (guitar), Matt Swanson (bass), Alex
McManus (guitar) and now Ryan Norris (keyboards, guitar) and Scott Martin
(drums). This is their sound, and it's LAMBCHOP’s sound. But,” he continues,
“LAMBCHOP more and more has become a vehicle for my songs and myself as an
artist. I've fought against that interpretation for twenty years, but now I’ve
just given up trying to fight it anymore. I am simply going to accept that this
is how it's evolved and leave it to others to define.”
Kurt’s lack of interest in being ‘the frontman’ was one of the appeals that the
collective mentality the band championed for so long held for him. Recent
releases have seen him shy away from the spotlight by ‘showcasing’ other members
of the band, most notably Tony Crow on Is A Woman and Willliam Tyler on Damaged.
OH (ohio) again sees a subtle shift in the way they operate. “Marky would say
that I was the "featured player" on OHIO,” Kurt concedes, “and he would say it's
about time too. I don't know if he's right on that or not, though. I would tell
him that it was a band record. He would just say I was full of shit.”
Moutenot concurs that Wagner represents the central figure of this line-up. “My
intentions were to cut a live record,” he explains. “No Protools, no moving
things around, no headphones: they sat in the same room and played together. I
wanted to document Kurt’s song and that band’s ability to embellish the music.”
The result is a record on which both Kurt and LAMBCHOP as a whole have perhaps
never sounded so comfortable in their own skin. Although rarely known for their
edginess, OH (ohio) sees them sound more relaxed than ever, though this is not
to say that it’s slow-paced or one-dimensional. In fact the album offers a
number of upbeat tracks that see the band at their most joyous and soulful since
Nixon. But there’s a newfound confidence that reflects Kurt Wagner’s recognition
of how the band has developed and altered his own place within it, as well as
confirming his success in reconciling that with how LAMBCHOP originally began.
They remain as enigmatic as ever, of course, even more so this time thanks to
Wagner’s refusal to reveal the album’s lyrics. “Suffice to say,” he insists,
“that from time to time I use "found" content, something I've done on and off
for years. Too many records have lyrics proudly displayed in booklets and that
detracts from the idea of thinking about a song and how it works as a whole. I
use language in a reckless abstracted splatter of phrase and meaning that
somehow comes together through association with the music. Presenting words
without music strays into the territory of poetry, or something other than its
intended use. With the advent of the ‘free burning music’ thing, people who get
their music this way don't have any of that stuff and don't care either. They
just like the song and don't have to have a sheet of words to get it. Hell, my
stuff doesn't make sense even if you have the words. That’s part of the point, I
guess.”
It’s a different world that LAMBCHOP inhabit from the one into which they first
emerged, but they are now a vital part of its landscape. Unyielding to the
vagaries of fashion, working entirely on their own terms and responding purely
to their artistic muse, they have earned the considerable respect they now
command. OH (ohio)’s gentle brilliance justifies their ongoing existence and
relevance once again. LAMBCHOP continue to stand proud, much like Wagner’s
house, a subtly altered but solid landmark in Nashville’s ever-changing scenery.
Long may it remain so.
http://rapidshare.com/files/150993642/Lambchop-OH__Ohio_-_Limited_Edition_-2CD-2008-404.rar
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