Lambchop by Angelina Castillo
“The track is a reflection on the temporal nature of life and ultimately of song itself,” Kurt Wagner has said of the new Lambchop single. “A ‘chef’s kiss’ being a gesture toward something perfected or well done, even loved.”
The new Lambchop album Showtunes has been set for May 21st.
The follow up to 2019’s ‘This (is what I wanted to tell you)’ is the result of more experimenting from Wagner, who for this one took basic guitar tracks and turned them into midi piano compositions.
“Suddenly I discovered I could ‘play’ the piano,” he says. “It was a revelation that from those conversions I was able to manipulate each note and add, subtract, arrange the chords and melody into a form that didn’t have any of the limitations I had with my previous methods of writing with a guitar.”
As its title suggests, doing so carried the new material in an unexpected direction, specifically somewhere towards the realm of show tunes.
“In general, it’s a genre I was none too fond of,” Wagner adds. “With the exceptions of a few Great American Songbook type of stuff or some of the works of artists like Tom Waits or early Randy Newman or even Gershwin or Carmichael.
“I’d always wanted to make songs with a similar feel but my skills were limited until now.”
Showtunes tracklist:
A Chef’s Kiss
Drop C
Papa Was A Rolling Stone Journalist
Fuku
Unknown Man
Blue Leo
Impossible Meatballs
The Last Benedict