It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that a record apparently named after the First Lady Of The United States, released four days before a former First Lady will hopefully become president, might have a polemical agenda. Hunting through the crumpled textures and digital folds of Lambchop’s ...
DO THE HUSTLE (AND OTHER DANCES)!
Four more of Kurt Wagner’s excursions into electronica
LAMBCHOP
Up With People (Zero 7 Remix)
CITY SLANG 2000
The rousing highlight of Nixon briefly threatened to turn Lambchop into a mainstream band, at least in Europe. Zero 7, flourishing at the time as a kind of UK analogue to Air, provided a suitably millennial remix, reconfiguring the original’s raw soul with tasteful chill-out symphonics.
MORCHEEBA
What New York Couples Fight About
SIRE 2002
Not dance music or electronica, exactly, but Wagner’s short period of pop recognition resulted in a hook-up with Morcheeba, coffee-table trip-hop artisans non pareil. Sadly, Wagner and one of the Charango album’s other guests – Slick Rick! – don’t cross paths among the spy movie harpsichords and shuffle beats.
X-PRESS 2
Give It (Featuring Kurt Wagner)
SKINT 2005
The crew of veteran acid house DJs dabbled with crossover in the early 2000s, enlisting the likes of David Byrne and the Polyphonic Spree’s Tim DeLaughter as vocalists. For Wagner’s turn, they created a gospel-tinged rave-up pitched somewhere between “Up With People” and Primal Scream’s “Come Together”. Wagner snarls impressively throughout.
HeCTA
The Diet
CITY SLANG/MERGE 2015
The clear precursor of FLOTUS, as Wagner teams up with latterday Lambchop members Ryan Norris and Scott Martin for a straight-up electronica album. Very much a work in progress; Wagner’s voice sits awkwardly above the beats, never quite achieving the integrated harmonies of FLOTUS.
