Tony Stamp reviews the new album from Nashville veterans Lambchop, UK beatmaker Gold Panda, and folk musician Rozi Plain.
The Bible by Lambchop
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One of the best albums of last year came courtesy of a Nashville country band who started in the '80s, and in the decades since have folded guitar noise, soul influences, and electronics into their sound. On their latest, all those stylistic shifts merge into a consistent whole, undeniably weird but always rewarding.
Lambchop is the project of Kurt Wagner, who for over thirty years has surrounded himself with a rotating cast of musicians, and output sixteen albums, all of them released on Merge Records. It’s notable that several long term members of the band’s lineup departed just prior to this album, The Bible, because it has the distinct feeling of wanting to encapsulate Wagner’s whole career, with a cheeky title to match, and multiple hints that this could be his final outing.
Even when Wagner embraced electronics as a way to bolster his one-man-band, Lambchop albums always have a hefty list of guest musicians, and The Bible is a return to the swollen lineups of their heyday: there are three credited arrangers alongside Wagner, as well as string and brass sections, multiple choirs, and several beat makers. It’s how you get swelling horns next to the sound of a gun cocking on that track, ‘Whatever Mortal', and later on ‘Police Dog Blues’, an excursion into funk, complete with slap bass.
In the 2000s, Lambchop began to lean into their soul influences, adding gospel vocals while Wagner embraced falsetto. When age took away his ability to hit the high notes he turned to auto-tune and vocal processing, after hearing it in hip hop on his neighbour’s stereo. Part of the band’s legacy will be defined by this desire to evolve and experiment, within a genre not exactly known for progression. These are all country songs, just buried under sound design and left-of-centre samples.
Kurt Wagner is 64, and The Bible contains numerous references to growing old. Calling its last track ‘That’s Music’ does have an air of finality, but I hope Lambchop continue for a good deal longer. Regardless of age and genre, they continue to make music that’s admirably weird and exciting - so much so that it can be easy to take for granted how beautiful many of these songs are, and how easily listenable.
The Work by Gold Panda
Photo: Laura Lewis
The expanding canvas of electronic music grew beyond the dancefloor a long time ago, but it still might seem counterintuitive to think of instrumental albums having a theme or message. The latest by UK producer Gold Panda contains very few words, instead conveying meaning through musical choices such as a well-placed sequence of piano chords.
Gold Panda is the alias of British musician Derwin Dicker, and this album, The Work, is his fourth. Over the past six years his output under the name went quiet, as he tried out other projects that weren’t as sample-focused. Dicker has been working with samples since he was a teenager, and his approach is part of what distinguishes him from his peers: to get around clearance rights, he’ll only take tiny snippets from records found in dollar store bins, change their pitch, and layer them. It’s what gives his albums their thoroughly scuffed sound, and only very occasionally will he use something recognisable, like the Dean Friedman vocal, taken from his song ‘Lydia’, that Dicker re-works into ‘The Corner’.
If you were following Gold Panda on social media around five years ago, you may have sensed that something was amiss, and sure enough the press with this album mentions past struggles with mental health and alcohol, as well as the shock of becoming a parent. He’s now sober, in therapy and a father of two, and explicit that ‘the work’ referred to in this album's title is self-help and self-betterment.
Even without that prior knowledge it’s an undeniably emotional album, even when the emotion is counterintuitive, as on the jubilant ‘I’ve Felt Better (Than I Do Now)’.
I had wondered how Dicker’s music might have changed in the time since the last Gold Panda album, and the answer is not much. Any of these tracks could have appeared on prior albums and not felt too out of place, but there is something to be said for that consistency, and the feeling that there’s still plenty of gas in this particular tank.
He also rarely goes for the easy option, for example favouring nuanced rhythms over anything too bombastic.
There were two major changes made to Dickers’ approach on this album: he bought a synth to go with his sampler, and all the tracks were performed live, then edited into something new. That sense of spontaneity shines through, I think, and all his musical choices betray how deeply he seems to feel things. Aside from anything it’s hard to hear all that vinyl crackle and not feel slightly comforted.
Prize by Rozi Plain
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We are awash in more music than ever before; more than anyone has time to listen to, so it’s easy to miss albums that could be right up your alley. British musician Rozi Plain has released an album called Prize, and for fans of hushed music that uses synths alongside guitars, it’ll feel much like its name: an unexpected treat.
Rozi Plain’s first album came out in 2008, and her palette hasn’t shifted much - lightly plucked guitars over gingerly tapped drums, and an overall sense of amiability. When I heard her music it brought to might This Is the Kit, another project centred around an easy going persona, albeit with more banjo involved. It turns out Plain is a long time member of that band. There has evidently been some musical cross-pollination, as well as a shared sense of serenity.
Prize is an album that feels like it’s wearing a comfy sweater. There are challenging elements but they’re mostly to do with the complexity of the music, and the way its elements intersect. Plain’s work is often described as jazzy, and I think that might be due to the way she, like This is the Kit, incorporates busy cyclical arpeggios into her chill tunes.
The album leans on synths as much as acoustic instruments to colour in the margins, and they’re as tasteful as everything else. The track ‘Sore’ begins sounding comparatively pensive, and then it’s down to some lush strings to provide an emotional reset.
The songs on Prize often wander off into instrumental passages, and it’s often then that the electronic parts get room to act up a bit. Mostly this is an album of diminutive sounds, designed to match Rozi Plain’s laidback delivery. Her songs can be cryptic, even elusive, but they’re always pleasant.
