The Hopscotch Festival begins September 6 in Raleigh, NC. Included in the impressive festival line-up is Lambchop, who will perform at the lovely Fletcher Opera Theater on Saturday, September 8.

Today, Hopscotch premiered a video of Kurt Wagner of Lambchop performing “Buttons,” a track from the band’s latest album Mr. M, at Carrboro’s Friendly Barber Shop during XX Merge.

Watch Lambchop perform “Buttons” at Friendly Barber Shop

Visit Hopscotchmusicfest.com for ticket information and the full list of bands performing at this year’s festival. Merge bands include Pipe, Versus, Mac McCaughan, the Mountain Goats, Lambchop, the Love Language, Shark Quest, Wye Oak & Flock of Dimes.

Merge Records will also host a free listening party at Foundation from 4-6pm on Friday, September 7. Drop in to hear our new & upcoming fall releases and to sample the always-delicious signature cocktail concocted by the Foundation bartenders. We’ll have lots of fun stuff to give away, too! Find music from all of our Hopscotch artists and more in the Merge store.

Tune in to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight to see Lambchop perform on TV for the first time since 2004!

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon airs beginning at 12:35 ET on NBC. Other guests include Bill Hader and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Also, check out the series of video interviews for each song on Mr. M at the Merge YouTube page.

Order Mr. M now on CD or limited-edition dbl-LP in the Merge store. Find Lambchop on Twitter, Facebook, and at Lambchop.net.

Lambchop‘s Mr. M will be in stores on February 21, but NPR is streaming the full album now at NPR Music. Also, see the new video for “Gone Tomorrow” featuring underground Nashville wrestlers at NPR’s All Songs Considered blog.

Of Mr. M, NPR says:

But, for an album that once bore the working title Major League Bummer, Mr. M isn’t mournful so much as winsome; it’s no accident of sequencing that it winds to a close with a redemption song as generous and giant-hearted as “Never My Love.” Amid softly plucked acoustic guitars and sweet strings, that song is so direct in its hopefulness and gratitude, it almost sounds as if Wagner is covering Don Williams again. But it’s just the sound of a downcast dreamer who, nearly 20 years into his career with Lambchop, is just beginning to find what he’s wanted all along.

Listen to Lambchop’s Mr. M now at NPR Music

NPR premiered the new video for “Gone Tomorrow” featuring scenes from the underground wrestling scene in Nashville. Director Zach Spiger and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner offer the story behind the video as well. Read the story and watch the video at the All Songs Considered blog.

Watch the video for “Gone Tomorrow”

Mr. M is available for pre-order on CD and dbl-LP now in the Merge store.

Lambchop US tour:
Apr 13 Asheville, NC The Grey Eagle
Apr 14 Durham, NC Motorco
Apr 15 Arlington, VA IOTA
Apr 16 Annapolis, MD Ram’s Head
Apr 17 Boston, MA Paradise
Apr 18 Philadelphia, PA World Café Live
Apr 19 New York, NY Le Poisson Rouge
Apr 20 Brooklyn, NY The Bell House
Apr 21 Pittsburgh, PA Club Café
Apr 22 Cleveland, OH The Beachland Ballroom
Apr 23 Ann Arbor, MI The Ark
Apr 24 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
Apr 25 Madison, WI High Noon Saloon
Apr 26 Minneapolis, MN The Dakota
Apr 27 Omaha, NE The Slowdown
Apr 28 Boulder, CO The Fox Theatre
May 01 Seattle, WA The Tractor Tavern
May 02 Portland, OR Doug Fir
May 04 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
May 05 Santa Monica, CA McCabe’s
May 06 Tucson, AZ Club Congress
May 08 Dallas, TX TBA
May 09 Austin, TX The Cactus
May 11 Birmingham, AL Secret Stages
May 12 Nashville TN TBA

Lambchop premiered “Gone Tomorrow” from their forthcoming new album Mr. M on NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast today. Listen to the All Songs Considered podcast now or hear the track below via Merge’s SoundCloud page.

Lambchop – Gone Tomorrow by Merge Records

Pre-order Mr. M now on CD or limited-edition dbl-LP in the Merge store to receive a poster (the first 150 of which will be signed!) featuring Kurt Wagner’s original paintings used in Mr. M’s liner notes and a Lambchop coin purse while supplies last.

Visit the Merge blog to watch an album trailer for Mr. M, too!

Merge Records will release Lambchop‘s Mr. M on February 21.

It’s been nearly two decades since Lambchop released its first album, at the time pronouncing itself “Nashville’s most fucked-up country band.” Provocative it may have been, but the description made sense: at the heart of all that ruckus was a band at once defying and embracing the musical legacy of its hometown. Since then, Lambchop has evolved into an accomplished ensemble, adding palpable depth and substance to singer-songwriter-guitarist Kurt Wagner’s songs—and the band sounds as commanding as ever on its 11th album, Mr. M, a collection of meditations on love and loss and the detritus of everyday existence.

Recorded at Mark Nevers’s Nashville Beech House studio cum bungalow and dedicated to Vic Chesnutt, Mr. M includes the usual core of musicians- Scott Martin (drums), Matt Swanson (bass), Ryan Norris (guitar, organ), Tony Crow (piano), William Tyler (guitar) and guests include original co-founder Jonathan Marx, delightful Cortney Tidwell (who shared vocals on 2010’s KORT project) and fiddler Billy Contreras (who has worked with all from Charlie Louvin to Laura Cantrell) – and with spectacular string arrangements shared between Peter Stopschinski and Mason Neely, it stretches out sonically as promised. (Incidentally the paintings, thickly layered black and white portraits forming a series called Beautillion Millitaire 2000, feature on the album sleeve and throughout the full artwork).

The core of the music remains the cyclical picking of Wagner’s guitar and the soft, warm croaking of his voice. The songs are spacious, even dreamy, as on the Countrypolitan instrumental “Gar,” while the lyrics and titles are rich with allusions, some of them obvious, others seemingly unknowable.

Listen to the first track “If Not I’ll Just Die” and pre-order Mr. M on CD or LP now in the Merge store. While supplies last, preorders will include a poster (the first 150 of which will be signed!) featuring the album’s cover art, an original painting by Kurt Wagner.

Lambchop – “If Not I’ll Just Die” by Merge Records

Follow Lambchop on Twitter, Facebook and at their official website, Lambchop.net.