Maybe all those years spent laying floors have instilled a confidence in Kurt Wagner that, when top class craftsmanship is on offer, people are prepared to be patient. Or perhaps during those semesters spent at a Memphis Art College he picked up a healthy aesthetic arrogance that prevents him from pandering to his audience’s wishes. It could, of course, just be a Southern 40-something Gent thing – a distaste for blowing one’s own trumpet too loudly.
Whatever: in the decade that Lambchop have been releasing records, one thing about this brilliant, challenging songwriter has always been clear – his records won’t come running for attention. They wait until you’re ready to find them.
Cast your mind back to how he responded to the crossover vistas opened up by the success of 2000’s luminous Nixon; instead of ploughing through a rich and potentially lucrative furrow, Wagner radically pared the band’s sound back to conjure up Is A Woman, one of the sparsest, most determinedly somnolent records of recent time.
While his accountant may not have been impressed, Is A Woman stands as one of this decade’s great musical achievements.
For the task of following it up, Wagner has been typically contrary. Aw C’Mon/No You C’Mon are, in theory, two separate albums that, for convenience sake, have been packaged and sold together. While from the outset, it’s obvious that they lack the consistency of tone and startling sense of poetry that imbued the previous LP, there are enough moments of sublime beauty, stretched across the 24 tracks, to earn it an esteemed space in your collection. The highest peaks occur on the first CD: ‘Steve McQueen’, ‘Something’s Going On’, ‘Every Time I Bring It Up It Seems To Bring You Down’ and ‘Action Figure’ would all stand proud on previous ’Chop records. A load of cheery, but inconsequential, instrumentals, however, lower the quality threshold.
That said, most of this band’s previous records released their magic slowly. Maybe we’re being lured in once more, Kurt’s just waiting ’til he gets us in his sights.