{"product_id":"673855089706","title":"PRE-ORDER: Lambchop \"Punching the Clown\" LP (Frosted Clear Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTHIS IS A PRE-ORDER: We expect this to ship on or around AUGUST 21st, 2026. Any items ordered with this will be held until they can ship together. If you need other items faster please place a separate order for those items. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo 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. The song, typically a hymn, is led by a clerk, who begins the verse alone before a choir swells up to accompany them on the rest of the line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Wagner:\u003cbr\u003eit seemed perfect in the moment.\u003cbr\u003ea chorus of singers revealing the raw beauty and power of the human voice\u003cbr\u003ewith its unique varieties.\u003cbr\u003eits unadorned simplicity gave weight to the words as they were sung.\u003cbr\u003ei wanted to make a record that emulated this kind of music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWorking 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, The Bible 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is graceful, generous, sometimes wry and sometimes heartbreaking, unblinkingly idiosyncratic yet precise as cut glass. How else can one describe Punching the Clown, beyond Wagner's own exegesis?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom Wagner:\u003cbr\u003eIt's the darndest thing.\u003cbr\u003elet's just say i tried for simple, restrained vocabulary to get closer to a\u003cbr\u003emodest amount of truth through a guise of hyper-naturalism grief love and\u003cbr\u003ehumor.\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"pt-2\"\u003estreet date 8\/21\/2026\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Secretly Canadian","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45079546331336,"sku":"673855089706","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0628\/1337\/2616\/files\/89c.png?v=1778281484","url":"https:\/\/1234gorecords.shop\/products\/673855089706","provider":"1-2-3-4 Go! Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}