KORT is Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner and solo singer/songwriter Cortney Tidwell, and with covers album Invariable Heartache (City Slang), the duo has recorded a sort of love letter to its hometown of Nashville and the city’s musical past. Eleven of the LP’s dozen tracks were originally recorded in the ’60s and ’70s for the Music City-based Chart Records (a label with huge familial ties for Tidwell), and the 12th song was cut by Tidwell’s mom, Connie Eaton, in 1975 for ABC Dunhill. And while the heartfelt Invariable Heartache is certainly ensconced in Nashville’s storied musical history, it’s a thoroughly modern statement by two of the town’s brightest hopes for Music City’s future being as fertile as its past. Wagner and Tidwell will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with them.
Tidwell: Figuring ever so briefly (and completely unauthorized) in the Kort “docu-EPK” is none other than Wye Oak: Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner. Filmmaker Zack Spiger caught their act while filming Kort getting their drink on. Sometime last summer, I met up with them for breakfast in Nashville, and they sent me their new record. They just were looking to see if I could help get it some European label attention. I said I would try and there and by forgot all about it. Something I do all the time, ’cause I suck. So it lay in my life forgotten until I listened to it the other day. It’s called Civilian. It’s a stunner, and damn if it isn’t coming out in March on Merge here in the U.S. and City Slang over there. The songs, the voice (Jenn’s, like Cort’s, is a crusher) and the sounds reek of the heartache amongst us all, yet somehow we live to play it again, which I have. Just goes to show how little I know, how great they are and how you should never give me anything, ever.
Video after the jump.
