| Release Date: | 082826 |
| Currently: | Out of stock... OR coming soon - Check That Release Date one line up! (MM/DD/YY) |
| Please note: | LIMITED EDITION: Please e-mail us, with "Request to Order" in the subject line,, at [email protected] and we will get back to you with availability & current pricing |
August 21st 2026
Indie Exclusive Frosted-Clear vinyl
To hear Kurt Wagner tell it, "Punching The Clown", the seventeenth album by beloved shapeshifting Nashville institution Lambchop, began as a ghost hunt. After hearing a song on the radio while driving one night - a minimal single chord strummed banjo and a small group of voices - he went looking for it and failed. In his pursuit, he discovered "lined-out singing", a form of acapella call-and-response that became a root of American gospel and country music when Scottish immigrants settled in Appalachia. From Wagner: "I wanted to make a record that emulated this kind of music". Working again with guitarist Andrew Broder, Wagner went back to writing songs the way he did when he started out.
Of the dozens of songs Wagner and Broder wrote, 30 were considered, and 12 became "Punching The Clown". The voice lining out those songs, unmistakably, is Wagner's. Responding to his call: Broder (guitar), Justin Vernon (banjo), an Eau Claire-based choir put together by Blake Morgan, producer Ryan Olson (Poliça, Gayngs), and engineer Mark Nevers (Silver Jews, Bill Callahan, Bonnie "Prince" Billy), recording and mixing his first Lambchop album since 2012's "Mr. M". The result is graceful, generous, sometimes wry and sometimes heartbreaking, unblinkingly idiosyncratic yet precise as cut glass.
Track list: