Lamb

Biography

Lamb is a name of at least five acts: (1) An electronic duo formed in 1996 in Manchester, England, by Lou Rhodes (singer-songwriter) andAndy Barlow (music/production). They incorporated into their musical style a distinctive mixture of downbeat, trip-hop, jazz, dub, breaks, and drum and bass with a strong vocal element and, in their later works especially, some acoustic influences. Lamb are notable for their highly experimental work, a distinctive production style, Lou's often passionate lyrica...

Lamb is a name of at least five acts:

(1) An electronic duo formed in 1996 in Manchester, England, by Lou Rhodes (singer-songwriter) andAndy Barlow (music/production). They incorporated into their musical style a distinctive mixture of downbeat, trip-hop, jazz, dub, breaks, and drum and bass with a strong vocal element and, in their later works especially, some acoustic influences. Lamb are notable for their highly experimental work, a distinctive production style, Lou's often passionate lyrical style, and their artistic videos.

Their signature song is Gorecki, from their eponymous debut album and it was inspired by Henryk Górecki's Third Symphony, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Other essential songs are Cotton Wool, God Bless, B Line, Gabriel, Sweet, and Wonder.

To date, the band has released six studio albums: Lamb (1996), Fear of Fours (1999), What Sound (2001), Between Darkness And Wonder (2003), 5 (2011) and Backspace Unwind (2014). In 2003 they also issued a compilation entitled Best Kept Secrets.

In February 2005, Lamb announced that they would pursue their own solo projects, ending their collaboration for now. Their last concerts were in Paradiso, Amsterdam, and these shows appear in the DVD 'Lamb Live at the Paradiso' which was released in 2011.

Lou Rhodes released her first solo album Beloved One (2006) which received a Mercury nomination. This was followed by Bloom (2007), and One Good Thing (2010). Lou also branched out and became an author, with children's books The Phlunk (2013) and The Phlunk's Worldwide Symphony (2014 Strata Books).

Producer Andy Barlow focused on his band Hoof and a project called Luna Seeds with vocalist–songwriter Carrie Tree, and produced the Fink album Distance and Time. In 2013 Barlow's debut solo album as LOWB, Leap and the Net Will Appear was re-released on a new label, Distiller Records. Andy continued to work as a producer, working with Bristol band The Ramona Flowers on their album Dismantle and Rebuild (2014) which he also co-wrote. Most recently, he produced and mixed David Gray's new album Mutineers (2014).

The hiatus ended in 2009 when Lamb reunited and started performing again. Lamb returned to the studio the following year to record their fifth studio album 5 which was released in 2011. They also released their first live album in 2011 Live at Koko and the long-awaited DVD Lamb Lamb Live at the Paradiso.

In October 2014, the band released a new album Backspace Unwind, followed by a single 'We Fall in Love' (subsequently voted "Best Chillout/Lounge Track" at the International Dance Music Awards 2015). They began a tour in 2014 which included the UK and Europe. The tour continued into 2015 with shows and festivals in Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

(2) A group formed by Barbara Mauritz and Bob Swanson in San Francisco in the late 1960s. This group disbanded in 1972. The minor San Francisco group Lamb tend to be remembered only for their appearance on the Fillmore: The Last Days concert album, where they were one of several non-star artists on a set dominated by bigger names like the Grateful Dead, Santana, and Boz Scaggs. The band did actually put out three albums in the early '70s, however, and were quite an interesting group. Not only were they not readily comparable to other acts on the San Francisco rock circuit, but it's debatable whether they could be fairly categorized as a rock band at all. Their music blended jazz, folk, singer/songwriter pop, gospel, and even some classical and avant-garde influences. Certainly the dominant figure was singer Barbara Mauritz, whose bluesy and earthy vocals had considerable resonance, but which could also traverse the band's frequently mystical, poetic lyrics with much delicacy and nuance. Reminiscent in spots of such varied artists as Tim Buckley, Judy Collins (in her art-song phase), David Ackles, and Savage Rose (in that band's most gospel-soaked period), their records were ultimately idiosyncratic enough to defy ready comparison to anyone. And they were, too, ultimately too inaccessible to make much commercial impact, despite plenty of tracks of considerable power, beauty, and enigma.

Lamb were formed by the duo of Texan singer Mauritz and multi-instrumentalist (though primarily guitarist) Bob Swanson. The two (writing both separately and together) was responsible for the band's material. They attracted attention in San Francisco when they opened for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young for a few nights at Winterland in November 1969. Impresario Bill Graham became their manager, and producer David Rubinson, who had worked with notable groups such as Santana and Moby Grape, acted in that capacity for their first record. Their debut album on the Fillmore label, A Sign of Change, was perhaps their most uncompromising and experimental, relying largely on jazz-folk acoustic arrangements and spotlighting Mauritz's impressive voice on impressionistic, dream-like lyrics. They moved over to Warner Bros (while retaining Rubinson as executive producer) for the follow-up, Cross Between, which moved toward slightly more mainstream rock arrangements and a more pronounced gospel feel on several tracks. Yet others were throwbacks to the first album in their obscure but enchanting poesy, sometimes owing more to a classical-influenced art song tradition than conventional pop music.

Lamb went yet further toward gospel-rockish material on their third and final album, Bring Out the Sun, which was their most mainstream outing, though hardly mainstream overall, with a couple of tracks again giving vent to their more experimental jazz-folk-classical side. The LP was co-billed to Lamb and Barbara Mauritz, though Swanson was still involved as a composer and instrumentalist on much of the material. Whether or not this co-billing was intended as a transition from Lamb to a solo career, Mauritz was soon recording as a solo, putting out Music Box for Columbia. Her solo career didn't take off, however, although she continued to perform and write (composing the music for many commercials). In the mid-'80s, Bob Swanson returned full-time to photography. The Lamb founded by Swanson and Mauritz, incidentally, had no relation to either the Christian rock band Lamb that began to record later in the '70s, or the drum'n'bass duo Lamb that began recording in the late '90s.

(3) A demoscene musician, active from early 1990s till early 2000s, known for composing many chiptunes, as well as themed collection-album called Autumn Leaf.

(4) A messianic Jewish pop music group formed in 1972 by Joel Chernoff and Rick "Levi" Coghill. This group has recorded as recently as 2005 (with Ted Pearce replacing Rick Coghill).

(5) A Japanese duo from Tokyo, formed in 1999. Kudo sings, Nakamura does everything else. They make pretty, light-hearted, chilled-out pop. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.