Lambchop

Is there a lyric sheet included with Is A Woman? If so, can the argument between Tim Hopkins & I as to whether the protagonist of My Blue Wave is having an affair with her dog be settled yet?

Now only if Paul Burch would make another album.

So Lambchop's coming to Boston, but I'm a bit afraid of seeing them in that I'll likely fall over and go to sleep in the middle of the show.

Nick is OTM above... I love the way there's all this stuff going on JUST inside your field of hearing, but it feels so much more affecting out there on the periphery. The way 'Bugs' feels like its building up and up without ever really getting any faster or louder is marvellous.

The Man Who Loved Beer is all time favourite ever, probably. How I Quit Smoking is insanely underrated.

And haven't you got everything everyone's done?

Oh for all of Muslimgauze's work.

I sorta wish the falsetto had come out more, frankly.

1. Either he can't sing or he doesn't feel too much like trying
2. I found his that-almost-means-something lyrics intensely annoying

Musically it was quite good - might drag it out again.

So last week I saw Aw C'Mon/No You C'Mon for £5 and decided to take the plunge. It's good - I haven't had time to fully get to know it but there are some crackers on No You C'Mon - 'There's Still Time', 'Nothing Adventurous' 'The Producers'.

So I saw 'Is A Woman' for a fiver too. Hmm - looked a bit *sepia* for my taste but what the heck, I bought it.

What a record!! I am loving this album so much. To these crash-bang-wallop trained ears it took a couple of listens to recalibrate and then...wow! Some truly lovely melodies/chord changes and superb layering. I see what people say about the lyrics and they're not wrong...yet they work. I like the fragmented, in-and-out of sleep feel. It's *evocative*, I think. (Did I really say that?)

And I'm surprised to find out who some of the admirers are - Matt DC says some great stuff upthread! Also Tim Hopkins!

aw cmon... is great too but i haven't listened to it a lot. the instrumentals are gorgeously melodic and instantly gratifying. but i think i would have preferred it to be condensed to just one disc.

Is A Woman is extraordinary. I kind of think you don't really need anything else by them.

Unsurprisingly, it's like a cross bewtween "Lazy" and "Up With People", with piano to the fore and a neat video that seems to take its stylistic cues from, uh, "Money For Nothing".

Your thoughts, ILM?

Source: subtitle of their forum here.

Gushing preview & more info here.

No confirmed tracklist yet, AFAIK, but these 10 tracks are out there somewhere:

01. Paperback Bible (7:48)
02. Prepared (6:03)
03. The Rise And Fall Of The Letter P (3:36)
04. A Day Without Glasses (4:11)
05. Beers Before The Barbican (4:51)
06. I Would Have Waited Here All Day (4:02)
07. Crackers (4:11)
08. Fear (5:00)
09. Short (3:48)
10. The Decline Of Country And Western Civilization (4:36)

LOL, I thought you all *were* talking about FLOTUS and that FLOTUS *was* the new album! I guess I'm too far out of the Lambchop loop, sorry Lambchop.

So loving FLOTUS and not being able to tolerate the sound of autotune seem like tough things to reconcile?

(NB I haven't heard the new one yet and am very excited to do so because I too loved FLOTUS but I thought the autotune on that was amazing and surprising.)

i mean i'm just guessing at paul's position (which i find unreasonably dismissive but i was trying to be nice) but it might help that flotus is a bunch of vocodered scribbles and fragments bound by two enormous songs, whereas this (is what i wanted to tell you) is a collection of songs where the vocoder is conveying clear lyrics and melodies that, by nature of the effect, end up oblique and wandering

again, not sure where the problem is

also that "in care of" is an old school lambchop song that happens to have kurt singing through a vocoder and almost nothing on this qualifies as an old school lambchop song

I liked FLOTUS in spite of the autotune (and tbf when I think of FLOTUS I mostly just think "The Hustle"), but when I heard the new album it occurred to me that FLOTUS was not just an anomaly and that "oh, I see, this is what Kurt does now" and it just grated on me. But I still love this band and will continue rooting for them, I just can't deal with that sound

True that The Hustle kind of towers over FLOTUS. I dig the new record, but I can def relate to the feeling of a band you like taking a left turn on a new album and liking it while simultaneously feeling "if this is their new thing I might be out"

yes, that's exactly otm

Autotune isn't a vocoder. A vocoder preserves certain aspects of the voice and applies them to a different carrier, so the mechanical carrier (e.g. a synth) sounds more human. Autotune flattens out those uniquely human aspects and makes the human sound mechanical.

i mean they're not completely dissimilar and if you like both that's fine, but there's good reason not to conflate the two.

yeah i'm aware of that, i read how to wreck a nice beach xp

kurt's use of the technology feels way more vocodery to me than the wide range of possibilities suggested by the word "autotune"

and it's still an instance of something human being exported to something mechanical

Autotune flattens out those uniquely human aspects and makes the human sound mechanical.

feel free to correct me if this definition is scientifically accurate but i wouldn't say autotune flattens uniquely human aspects of the voice at all, it exposes a lot of instabilities in the voice that performance can cover up

but I can def relate to the feeling of a band you like taking a left turn on a new album and liking it while simultaneously feeling "if this is their new thing I might be out"

― One Eye Open, Wednesday, June 12, 2019 10:50 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sun Kil Moon - Benji

xp clearly we're in ear of the beholder territory here, i don't hear it like that but I'm not going to try to talk you out of it if you do!

Just listened to the album for the first time lol, I am very happy for you people who can appreciate the autotune because that excepted, some of the songs are obviously so good; but I just can't get over it. When the last (non-autotuned) song came on I almost wept.

just did a double feature of In A Silent Way followed by This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You) and man, do those two records sound good together. Especially with all the ghostly muted trumpet floating in & out of the mix on the Lambchop, a perfect pairing.

kind of love this remix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2-6PrVDQKc

So they released a 13-minute cover of Wilco's Reservations. First listen and it's kinda just there but will try a couple more times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grKBBCdlOCc

wasn't sure of the new covers LP... but god i've not listened to This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) enough in the last year. I think I overplayed it in 2019 so needed a break. it's so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzNWfgRFjhY

new album Showtunes out May 21

the concept this time is he composed demo piano tracks with a midi editor instead of writing with a guitar, and it also features James McNew of Yo La Tengo as a band member (https://www.lambchop.net/ press release is here)

"chef's kiss" is pretty nice, a similar-ish feeling to the last album but he's shifted around which bits of the sound feel more and less organic. some people will be delighted he dropped the vocal processing but personally i could have listened to a whole career of albums with it

This (is what I wanted to tell you) was so good that it will be difficult to beat though

really lovely and interesting

That's hit home. His voice is beautiful at this pitch. Not wishing age on him but I think Wagner's voice will be extraordinary in later life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP8SGpb0PTc

fuck yeah!!!!!

sounds like the lambchop discography collapsing on itself

my goodness

those horns!

oh wow

sounds like the lambchop discography collapsing on itself

lol & otm. yeah their progression is very much like "i've been burning and re-ripping CDR copies of the same lambchop album for 20 years, and i think the drive is starting to fail." in the best way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQIFEjqnqCQ

another gorgeous new one

pretty good album, though not quite as perfectly to my tastes as the last one

did no one else care about this album at all?

https://toneglow.substack.com/p/tune-glue-011-kurt-wagner-lambchop

great interview with wagner here

Not sure it's as good as the last, and feels like it will take some time to settle in - but i've really enjoyed first few listens

That’s a terrific interview.

the new album is pleasant & interesting but not the masterpiece the last one was yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ7BBAipvzw

another new album already, the bible out 30 september

single is pretty cool, glad to have more of the warped sophisti-pop vibes of the last few albums

INTO THIS.

sounds like it could be in a michael mann movie. love that he's leaning into this sound.

a few more listens later and i adore this

i missed Ohio the first time around but turns out its one of their best whoops

It’s my favorite. Saw them in San Francisco touring that one; it was beautiful.

new album is wild wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXGTmlAfhHE

this one's especially cool

very nice

greatest band of all time

this is an incredibly stupid thing to say but "little black boxes" reminds me of last train to paris

Well, this is _unexpected_. 'Little Black Boxes' currently making me think of Hall & Oates, The1975 and Little Simz.

OK, 'Every Child Begins the World Again' just broke me. It's been a rough week.

"little black boxes" reminds me of last train to paris

lol i totally get this

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-page-of-madness-with-live-musical-accompaniment-by-coupler-tickets-609503049027?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

May 5, 2023: Coupler is accompanying the silent film A Page of Madness (1926). Anyone here going?