Lambchop's seventeenth album Punching the Clown finds Kurt Wagner returning to first principles. Sparked by a late night radio 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 unadorned word. That spirit of raw, communal voice shapes every moment of Punching the Clown Wagner spent years studying great songwriters and relearning his craft from the ground up, whittling dozens of songs down to twelve. Recorded in three days with guitarist Andrew Broder, Justin Vernon on banjo, and a six part choir assembled by Blake Morgan and engineered by Lambchop veteran Mark Nevers, the album is graceful, wry, and quietly devastating.

1. Just West of Nicollet
2. A Doctor in the House
3. Weakened
4. Stella
5. Punching the Clown
6. White People
7. The New World Wave
8. Andrew Jackson Asshat
9. Afterburner
10. Cigar
11. To Do
12. No Chicago