Lambchop
I Hope You're Sitting Down / Jack's Tulips

“I Hope You're Sitting Down (aka Jack's Tulips)” – Lambchop (1994, Merge)

Kurt Wagner is a songwriter from Altman's Nashville, who should certainly be counted as a guru of the collective ritual of barbecue, alongside those moments of intimate reflection that occupy the calmer and warmer afternoon hours, sitting on the raised terrace at home, drinking and gazing at a perfectly ordered small garden. With iconic tranquility. Even when things aren't going well, or worse, life just seems to be mocking you.

Kurt Wagner leads a group of musicians, from ten to fifteen elements (saxophone, trumpet, trombone, cello, clarinet, drums, organ or piano, pedal steel, acoustic guitar devoted to vintage Country, and electric guitar devoted to Indie Rock), to rediscover and rethink rural music. He blends a rich Country base with Soul and a muffled Jazz, with incursions of Avant-Garde Noise, in a completely atypical manner. There is no syncretism, but a synthesis that can boast a certain "eccietas," something elusive, yet also corporeal, that distinguishes and indeed "personalizes" them.

Kurt Wagner is then a phlegmatic singer, with a low and deep, magnetic voice. It reconciles many anxieties. Anyone familiar with “Is a Woman” or “Paperback Bible,” prototypical and poignant interpretations, knows well what I mean. For some, it is the voice of God. Without exaggerating, I would stick to the idea of a "master of ceremonies," an inspired "preparer" of Tennessee lamb chops.

Wagner's lyrics are surreal, ironic, clinging to the slang of the Beat Generation, with frequent changes of perspective. Sometimes edgy and even obscene, they immerse themselves in the idyllic calmness of his singing-speech, enormously enhancing the sarcastic potential of the words, tracing back the wavering long and repeated arpeggios. In some episodes, the song becomes very dynamic and tense, supplanting the usual fragile, diaphanous melodies in favor of a brisk, lively rhythm, with percussion at the forefront and guitar work chewing on Noise. Wagner's singing, in these cases, becomes fast and sorrowful, while he delivers tongue-twisters without interruption (e.g., “So I Hear You're Moving”).

Hence, “I Hope You're Sitting Down (aka Jack's Tulips)” is Lambchop's debut album, dated 1994. The band was formed in Nashville the previous year. It is the first of their current fourteen LPs, all of generally excellent quality. It may lack an absolute masterpiece, but the overall quality is consistently high. Here, at the debut, we have "in nuce" the whole creative range of the band, with their personal style already well defined. The arrangements are lush but airy, and Wagnerian crooning is already a guarantee.

Among the tracks: “Soaky In The Pooper,” an early masterpiece, now a classic. Wonderful, solemn, shadowy, unnaturally dreamy. The song brought Wagner certain notoriety because the (difficult) theme is suicide in a bathtub. Dilated arpeggios with psychedelic effects and detached jingling. "Listen to the drip from the faucet," read "the label on the toilet seat," go to the "Jewish funeral."

“Because You Are The Very Air He Breathes” recalls the experimental Talk Talk of “I Believe in You” (from “Spirit of Eden”), “Under The Same Moon” is a list of disparate or opposite things happening under the same moonlight, while “Hickey” creates a dense atmosphere, talking about love correspondences in a hotel.

“Let's Go Bowling” is built on fragmented and confidential snapshots: a barely functional relationship is dawning. "Don’t take pictures of the ruins of our life / dying without a fight / we are doing everything right / except for the way we touch, hug, and console each other. / Let’s go bowling." Chamber-like, with the usual lovely arpeggios, the organ sketching the melody, the benign, detached, modest yet still hopeful singing.

Bland the cover, highlighting a dog member, but what disturbs the sepia-tinted picture more is the annoying face of the child holding the dog (don’t be offended child, I assume you are a figment of pure imagination). They are countered by lazy female hips and groin, photographed in black and white, in the inner booklet beside the CD notes. Mentioned this whimsy oddity of the package, remains an album with much meat on the fire, which, unlike the other Wagner, provokes no inclination toward totalitarianism or any “urgent need to invade Poland.” Rather, a simple "noontime resting." Or the anticipation of a barbecue.