Lamb (band)
Encyclopedia
Lamb is an electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

 duo from Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, whose music is influenced by trip hop
Trip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...

 and drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...

. The duo consists of producer Andy Barlow
Andy Barlow (producer)
Andrew John Barlow is a British producer most famous for his work with trip-hop band Lamb which he co-founded with singer Lou Rhodes. He has also released work under the alias Hipoptimist. Barlow is a member of the band Hoof and has worked on a project called Luna Seeds...

, who also produces under the pseudonym Hipoptimist, and singer-songwriter Lou Rhodes
Lou Rhodes
Lou Rhodes is an English singer and songwriter from Manchester, now living in Wiltshire. In addition to providing vocals and lyrics for the band Lamb, Rhodes has released three solo albums: Beloved One, Bloom and One Good Thing...

. They achieved commercial success with two hit singles "Górecki
Górecki (song)
"Górecki" is a 1997 single by Lamb from their debut album Lamb.The song starts with a tenuous atmosphere and the lyrics "If I should die this very moment"...

" and "Gabriel".

Biography

Lamb's core members were Barlow and Rhodes, although the band subsequently expanded to include bassist Jon Thorne
Jon Thorne
Jon Thorne is an English double bassist.Born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire he lived in Zimbabwe from the age of 6 to 11 and is now based in Whalley Range, Manchester. He is self taught and started playing in his early twenties...

, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic guitarist Oddur Mar Runnarson, and Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 drummer Nikolaj Bjerre. London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

-based string trio Chi 2 Strings and trumpet player Kevin Davy
Kevin Davy
Kevin Davy is a British jazz trumpeter, based in London.Born in Nottingham, UK where he lived until 1986, whereupon gaining a place to study at Manchester Polytechnic, decided to move to the city...

 were frequent guest musicians.

They released their first album, the self-titled Lamb
Lamb (album)
Lamb is the title of Lamb's first album, released in 1996.-Track listing:# "Lusty" 4:09# "God Bless" 5:54# "Cotton Wool" 5:07# "Trans Fatty Acid" 7:37# "Zero" 5:31# "Merge" 5:54# "Gold" 5:42# "Closer" 3:51# "Górecki" 6:30# "Feela" 6:44...

in September 1996, and followed this up with another three albums and a cache of singles over the next eight years, culminating in the release of a greatest hits album, Best Kept Secrets
Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004
Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996–2004 is the greatest hits collection and most recent release of British trip-hop group Lamb.-Track listing:# "Cotton Wool"# "God Bless"# "Gold"# "Górecki"# "Little Things"# "B-Line"# "Lullaby"# "Bonfire"...

, in June 2004. While they seemed destined for stardom, it seemed to evade them and during the early 2000s they lost momentum and played live only sporadically. Still, a 2004 tour produced memorable shows, according to the British press. Lamb performed what was billed as their final live appearance at the Paradiso
Paradiso (Amsterdam)
Paradiso is an iconic rock music venue and cultural center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.-History:It is housed in a converted former church building that dates from the nineteenth century and that was used until 1965 as the meeting hall for a liberal Dutch religious group known as the "Vrije...

 in Amsterdam in September 2004. Their 2003 album Between Darkness and Wonder
Between Darkness and Wonder
Between Darkness and Wonder is the title of Lamb's fourth album released in 2003.-Track listing:All tracks were written by Andrew Barlow and Lou Rhodes, except where noted.# "Darkness" – 4:59# "Stronger" – 3:14...

proved to be their last studio album; the duo had always been "combustible," and both went solo. Rhodes left the music world briefly for a commune, and in 2006 released her first solo album.

Although getting their start in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, Lamb are more commonly associated with the Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

-based trip hop
Trip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...

 sound that was popular during the 1990s. Aside from trip hop, their musical style is a distinctive mixture of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, dub, breaks and drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...

, with a strong vocal element and, in their later works especially, some acoustic influences. While they were a hit phenomenon in the UK, they found limited success in other parts of the world, despite securing distribution. Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 was an exception, however; the band achieved crossover success there, including one major number one hit with "Gabriel," the lead single from 2001's What Sound.

The band produces experimental work with a distinctive production style, which includes passionate lyrical delivery. Their artistic videos draw on influences ranging from Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

 through George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

' THX 1138
THX 1138
THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. The film is based on a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch...

to Zen Buddhism.

By far their best-known track to date is "Górecki
Górecki (song)
"Górecki" is a 1997 single by Lamb from their debut album Lamb.The song starts with a tenuous atmosphere and the lyrics "If I should die this very moment"...

", from their eponymous debut album. The song is inspired by Henryk Górecki
Henryk Górecki
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki was a composer of contemporary classical music. He studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice between 1955 and 1960. In 1968, he joined the faculty and rose to provost before resigning in 1979. Górecki became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during...

's Third Symphony
Symphony No. 3 (Górecki)
The Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs , is a symphony in three movements composed by Henryk Górecki in Katowice, Poland, between October and December 1976. The work is indicative of the transition between Górecki's dissonant earlier manner and his more tonal...

, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Part of the lyrics to "Górecki" were used by Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann
Mark Anthony "Baz" Luhrmann is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for The Red Curtain Trilogy, which includes his films Strictly Ballroom, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!...

 for some of Satine's lines in Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...

. The song was used in an advertisement for Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...

 and an advertisement for the Tomb Raider: Underworld
Tomb Raider: Underworld
Tomb Raider: Underworld is the eighth instalment of the Tomb Raider series. The story continues from the events in Tomb Raider: Legend as a direct sequel, but also addresses unexplained plot elements by association with Tomb Raider: Anniversary; the 2007 remake of the original Tomb Raider...

video game. It was also featured on the soundtrack of the 1998 Hollywood film "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer". The 2004 DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 The Fall & Rise of the Fools Ark, a roadmovie by Dutch duo Dadara and Jesse
Dadara and Jesse
Dadara and Jesse are a veejaying duo from Amsterdam, who together made the movie "Fall and Rise of the Fools Ark".The movie is the partially-animated story of the Greymen and their battle against the Fools Ark, a 15 metres long wooden ship built in Holland, transported to the United States and...

 for which Lamb provided the music, is an animated roadmovie in the style of Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

 and Yellow Submarine.

Reunion

During the band's hiatus, both were working on a variety of solo projects. Rhodes released her debut solo album Beloved One on her own label Infinite Bloom in 2006. This was followed by Bloom in 2008 and One Good Thing in 2010.

Barlow worked on a project called "Hoof" (together with Oddur Runasson, among others, who also appeared on Rhodes' solo debut), which has performed live a number of times but as of 2011 not released an album. Barlow also worked on a project called "Luna Seeds" with vocalist–songwriter Carrie Tree (also without releasing an album so far), and produced the Fink
Fink (music)
Fink, AKA Fin Greenall, is an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer and DJ from St. Ives, currently based in Brighton. Since 2006, the name Fink has also referred to the recording and touring trio fronted by Greenall himself, completed by Guy Whittaker and Tim Thornton . Fink is signed...

 album Distance and Time.

In February 2009, the organisers of The Big Chill
The Big Chill (music festival)
The Big Chill is an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August...

 music festival announced that Lamb would be re-forming to perform at the August 2009 event. The band subsequently announced two further appearances, at Cactus Festival and Beautiful Days Festival
Beautiful Days (festival)
This article is about the music festival. For other uses, see Beautiful Days .The Beautiful Days is a music festival that takes place in August at Escot Park, Ottery St Mary, Devon...

, and also played the Glastonbury festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...

 and made appearances at festivals in Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 and Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, among others. At the time, no announcement was made as to whether the band would be releasing new material, or whether the festival tour was going to be a one-off.

Later in 2009, the band announced concert dates for 2010 as well. During one of those shows, on 3 January 2010 at The Tivoli in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

 Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 (the 32nd gig out of an initially planned 7), Andy Barlow
Andy Barlow (producer)
Andrew John Barlow is a British producer most famous for his work with trip-hop band Lamb which he co-founded with singer Lou Rhodes. He has also released work under the alias Hipoptimist. Barlow is a member of the band Hoof and has worked on a project called Luna Seeds...

 stated that it would be their "last gig ever, but who knows". Barlow later followed up on Lambs Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 fan page on 7 January, "I have a strong feeling that there will be more Lamb shows, It doesn't seem like it has reached its finale just yet".

In December 2010, the band sent another e-mail to fans, announcing the recording of their fifth album, to be titled 5. A selection of songs from the album were previewed at Playground Weekender music festival near Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 on 20 February, 2011. A special edition of the album, hand-numbered and limited to 2800 copies, could be pre-ordered through Lamb's website and was shipped to fans in May 2011, followed by the commercial release of the standard edition on 9 June in the UK. Other European countries saw slightly later release dates.

The band started a European tour to promote the new album on May 19 in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, and are scheduled to play further concerts - including festival appearances - throughout the summer of 2011.

Studio albums

  • 1996 Lamb
    Lamb (album)
    Lamb is the title of Lamb's first album, released in 1996.-Track listing:# "Lusty" 4:09# "God Bless" 5:54# "Cotton Wool" 5:07# "Trans Fatty Acid" 7:37# "Zero" 5:31# "Merge" 5:54# "Gold" 5:42# "Closer" 3:51# "Górecki" 6:30# "Feela" 6:44...

    (Fontana Records
    Fontana Records
    Fontana Records is a record label which was started in the 1950s as a subsidiary of the Dutch Philips Records; when Philips restructured its music operations it dropped Fontana in favor of Vertigo Records. In the seventies PolyGram acquired the dormant label....

    )
    • UK
      UK Albums Chart
      The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

       #109
  • 1999 Fear of Fours
    Fear of Fours
    Fear of Fours is the title of Lamb's 1999 album.-Track listing:# "Soft Mistake" – 3:15# "Little Things" – 3:18# "B Line" – 2:51# [untitled] – 0:07# "All in Your Hands" – 4:38# "Less Than Two" – 1:18# "Bonfire" – 4:23# "Ear Parcel" – 7:54...

    (Polygram Records)
    • UK #37; US Top Heatseekers
      Top Heatseekers
      Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical...

       #35; NOR
      VG-lista
      VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by...

       #22; AUS
      ARIA Charts
      The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

       #25; NLD #61
  • 2001 What Sound
    What Sound
    What Sound is Manchester electronic music duo Lamb's 2001 album. It is the group's third release.The producer/vocal duo of Andy Barlow and Lou Rhodes is joined by session musicians Arto Lindsay on guitar, Me'Shell NdegéOcello on bass, and Michael Franti with additional vocal work...

    (Koch Records
    Koch Records
    E1 Music , the primary subsidiary of E1 Entertainment LP, is the largest independent record label in the United States. It is also distributed by the Universal Music Group in Europe under the name E1 Universal...

    )
    • UK #54; BEL
      Ultratop
      Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...

       (Flanders) #16; AUS #40; NLD #65; GER
      Media Control Charts
      The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

       #87
  • 2003 Between Darkness and Wonder
    Between Darkness and Wonder
    Between Darkness and Wonder is the title of Lamb's fourth album released in 2003.-Track listing:All tracks were written by Andrew Barlow and Lou Rhodes, except where noted.# "Darkness" – 4:59# "Stronger" – 3:14...

    (Koch Records)
    • UK #96; PT #13; BEL (Flanders) #20; SWI
      Swiss Music Charts
      The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75...

       #82
  • 2011 5 (Strata Music)

Compilation albums

  • 2004 Back to Mine
    Back to Mine
    Back to Mine is a series of mix albums, usually mixed by renowned DJs or composers of electronic music. The compilations usually feature artists other than the artist compiling the album, and are based on what the artist would play at home after a night out, rather than as part of a nightclub...

    : The Voodoo Sessions
    (DMC Records)
  • 2004 Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004
    Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996-2004
    Best Kept Secrets: The Best of Lamb 1996–2004 is the greatest hits collection and most recent release of British trip-hop group Lamb.-Track listing:# "Cotton Wool"# "God Bless"# "Gold"# "Górecki"# "Little Things"# "B-Line"# "Lullaby"# "Bonfire"...

    (Universal Records
    Universal Records
    Universal Records was a record label owned by Universal Music Group, and it is now owned by Manny Patino and Michael Jackson, and operated as part of the Universal Motown Republic Group.-History:...

    )
    • UK #111; BEL (Flanders) #24
  • 2005 Lamb Remixed (Mercury/Universal Records)

from Lamb

  • 1996 "Cotton Wool"
    • UK
      UK Singles Chart
      The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

       #76
  • 1996 "Gold"
    • UK #132
  • 1996 "God Bless"
    • UK #92
  • 1997 "Górecki
    Górecki (song)
    "Górecki" is a 1997 single by Lamb from their debut album Lamb.The song starts with a tenuous atmosphere and the lyrics "If I should die this very moment"...

    "
    • UK #30

from Fear of Fours

  • 1999 "B Line"
    • UK #52
  • 1999 "All in Your Hands"
    • UK #71
  • 1999 "Softly"

DVDs

  • 2004 The Fall & Rise of the Fools Ark (with Dadara and Jesse
    Dadara and Jesse
    Dadara and Jesse are a veejaying duo from Amsterdam, who together made the movie "Fall and Rise of the Fools Ark".The movie is the partially-animated story of the Greymen and their battle against the Fools Ark, a 15 metres long wooden ship built in Holland, transported to the United States and...

    )
  • November 2011 "Live At The Paradiso"

External links

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