Lambchop Punching The Clown

THIS IS A PRE-ORDER ITEM AND WILL BE SHIPPED WITH ANY OTHER ITEMS PURCHASED ALONGSIDE IT FROM THE RELEASE DATE OFAUGUST 21ST*

Lambchop’s seventeenth album Punching the Clown finds Kurt Wagner returning to first principles. Sparked by a late-nightradio encounter with an unidentified gospel recording, Wagner fell deep into the world of “lined out singing” a centuries-old Scots-Appalachian call-and-response tradition in which a lone clerk leads a choir through hymns, word by unadornedword. That spirit of raw, communal voice shapes every moment of Punching the Clown: Wagner spent years studying greatsongwriters and relearning his craft from the ground up, whittling dozens of songs down to twelve. Recorded in three dayswith guitarist Andrew Broder, Justin Vernon on banjo, and a six-part choir assembled by Blake Morgan and engineered byLambchop veteran Mark Nevers, the album is graceful, wry, and quietly devastating.