Lambchop and Hands Off Cuba - CoLAB

A collaborative effort, CoLAB’s idea was for the members of Lambchop & Hands off Cuba to work together recording music based off of each other’s previous recordings. Both Nashville-based, the EP stretches each group’s music but in natural ways that create something novel and subtly profound. CoLAB starts off with the album’s sole vocal track “Prepared,” a sort of Nick Cave/Michael Gira wandering pastoral that shows off Wagner’s touching and sincere. After a 30-second separating silence, “Blur” kicks in as a trip-hop orchestral piece that sounds like a less dark/more minimalistic folk version of Portishead. Sweeping string sections immerse the listener and carry them along atop a wave of ambient music. “Women” then takes the framework of the previous effort but throws in a jazzy and repetitive piano line that comes in and out between sparse and experimental digital wanderings. Rounding off the album is “Gus,” which mixes previous themes with a more full sound and upbeat tempo before deconstructing to closure. Like the silent and still moments of life, CoLAB finds a way to appreciate the simple things. It’s a soothing beat, a heartfelt sound, and the silence that’s contained between that make up the harmony of the world that surrounds us. Stripped and simple yet intricate and thought out, it’s as much about what it is as what it isn’t. [www.lambchop.net]