Tender is the mangle, the science diet, the ivory tangle
‘Yeah there comes a booming sound. Used to come from underground.’
Take three? Four? God, I’ve been trying to tell friends, acquaintances, and practically anyone who’d listen how much this album means to me for eight years now. Lonely nights I hook it into the TV surround sound, stand in the middle of the living room arms spread wide and am overtaken by it.
‘But now it emanates from a kind of welfare state of the soul, yeah baby, of the soul.’
The sound of Lambchop is immense, and never more so than on Nixon. These are songs lush in big Nashville studio production, with seventeen musicians, plus a choir and string section. The instruments range from classic Hammond organ and a 1946 Gibson to trumpets and saxophones to wrenches and paint cans. It drips with sound, the combination of vibraphones and reverberating guitar making the songs vast and cavernous yet full. When Kurt Wagner sings on “The Old Gold Shoe” about the stereo stretching out the sound, only the leading edges of all the instrumentation to appear have crept in. We are only being drawn in.
‘And of that sweet, sweet soul, let us be certain of the deliberate monologue.’
Kurt Wagner’s voice is an unusual, strange and expressive instrument itself. Resonant and classic in its warmth, he sings with a mellow intonation that recalls classic crooners on some of the songs, and on others employs a peculiar falsetto. The two rather different styles of his vocals reflect the odd amalgam of style that Nixon dabbles with, a beautifully organic and uplifting merger between soul and country.
‘As sure as if it will fall across you, unto you, will most certainly leave the doing… the doing undone. Come on undone!’
Uplifting is the word that most defines this album. The lushness of the production serves a purpose of providing the songs with a swaying, romantic weight. “You Masculine You” builds slowly and carefully to a rapturous climax with the Kurt singing ‘don’t follow me, don’t follow me.’ “Up With People” begins with a whirring noise and hushed voices preparing, then one guitar, and another, and hands clapping, then the bass as the guitar parts find each other and all lock together. Just before Kurt’s vocals begins, someone far in the background shouts with joy. Lord, that song makes me feel right with the world.
‘And we are doing, and we are screwing up our lives today.’
Yet Lambchop are not deeply serious, and almost every song is leavened with offbeat humour. My favourite line appears in “The Old Gold Shoe” – ‘The guy on the cross is holier than I, but then again, he’s made from plastic.’ In “Nashville Parent” over romantic Nashville strings, Kurt sings ‘try to spit onto the sidewalk, instead you wipe it off your chest.’ The album cover features the towering letters of NIXON floating in an idyllic country stream, quite an oblique image.
‘What’s that we chanted, it’s this we planted, c’mon progeny.’
Nixon is indeed an album that may leave you feeling uncertain to what it’s all about. As inviting and comfortable the cushiony soundscapes are, the songs are full of strange elements and often bizarre lyrics. It is a subtle, well-rounded album that can take its time to sink in its hooks or may just hit you all at once (as it did me). Dusty, dusky beautiful, and one of the great musical landmarks of the young 21st century.
*****
Yes yes yes!