It's a little sparse in a way, so it lends itself to a smaller presentation in terms of number of people. KW: Well, the interesting thing about FLOTUS, that we sort of discovered when we started thinking about performing it live, is that it's a pretty open-sounding record. dates at Off Broadway on March 22.ĬB: Lambchop's records tend to not take into consideration how the songs might be played live, so how do you go about taking something like FLOTUS and presenting it on-stage? I talked with Wagner on the phone from his home in Nashville, Tenn. Sitting next to the lightly pulsing, comparatively experimental FLOTUS, the reissue reminds us how deep and far Lambchop has voyaged over the past 15 years. It's a still, observational record, built atop guitar and piano. In addition to the release of FLOTUS in 2016, Lambchop reissued its 2002 LP Is A Woman earlier this year. And it was his experience with HeCTA - an electronic/dance collaboration with fellow Lambchop members Ryan Norris and Scott Martin - that foreshadowed Lambchop's most recent change of course. Kurt Wagner is the center of Lambchop, guiding the group into uncharted territory as both bandleader and bard. This is especially true of the band's latest release, FLOTUS, which centers the band's poetic, lounge-style sound around electronic elements for the first time. Initially shoved beneath the alt-country banner (they're genre-bending, with Americana touchpoints) they've shed that label over time and more properly defy classification. Lambchop released its first record in 1994, and has maintained a consistent, shape-shifting output in the two-plus decades since. They've been around longer than any of these bands, and may outlast them as well. It's a band that fits the definition of 'cult favorite' as well as any, despite the fact that past and present label-mates on Merge Records define a large portion of the indie-rock canon - Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Spoon, to name just a few.

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