Lambchop

Since their inception in 1986, Lambchop have concerned themselves primarily with blending the murmured, conversational lyricism of lead singer, songwriter, and sole consistent member Kurt Wagner with adventurous changes in style and texture. A lifelong Nashvillian, Wagner translated his art-school background into music with the indescribable avant-minded experiments of Lambchop’s early cassettes and singles. A breakthrough sophomore album, 1996’s How I Quit Smoking, would cement the band’s reputation as an alt-country unit, despite the fact that many of their releases work against that characterization. On albums like 2000’s immutable classic, Nixon, and 2012’s Mr. M—an ambitious baroque-pop tribute to Lambchop's late collaborator Vic Chesnutt—Wagner’s songwriting and arrangement sensibilities are consistently ambitious and aesthetically adventurous, often channeling the soul music of his region. In the mid-2010s, Wagner would embrace electronics wholeheartedly with the visionary FLOTUS (2016), which was dominated by heavily processed vocals and drum-machine latticing. This palette persisted across subsequent releases into the following decade, with a later-career high point being 2022’s The Bible, a cubist meditation on the deteriorating quality of American life, enhanced by chamber musicians and chintzy digital instruments.