Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner Launches Electronic Project HeCTA, Shares "Till Someone Gets Hurt"

Lambchop‘s Kurt Wagner has started an electronic music project called HeCTA. They’ll release their debut album, The Diet, on September 18 via Merge. Above, you can listen to “Till Someone Gets Hurt”.

The project also features Ryan Norris (Lambchop, Coupler) and Scott Martin (Lambchop, Hobbledeions). The album was produced by HeCTA and Jeremy Ferguson. Morgan Geist and John McEntire (The Sea and Cake, Tortoise) contributed mixing.

On the band’s new website, Wagner wrote a little bit about what inspired the project. He said the idea germinated from a Buddy Hackett monologue about losing weight and Tim Lawrence’s book Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture 1970-1979. Wagner also pointed to his previous work with electronic music: his co-writing credit on X-Press 2′s “Give It”, and the Zero 7 remix of Lambchop’s “Up With People”. 

Here’s an excerpt:

As HeCTA, we take our approach seriously and are respectfully aware of the great electronic music created throughout its history continuing into the present—so much so that when it came time to mix these recordings, we reached out to some of the central figures of the genre. Such greats as Morgan Geist, John McEntire, and Q all had a hand in shaping the refined sound we present to you. With invaluable creativity and engineering by Jeremy Ferguson at Battle Tapes in Nashville, we together created what we consider to be a collection of songs that move and move through you, from the dashboard to the dance floor, from Decatur to Dornburg, from Dorchester to Detroit.

Suck it up, hippies. This music is our attempt to extend the boundaries of our expression and have some fun. It’s not Americana, house, techno, trap, juke, or blaze. Why would it be? And like any good diet, it will be reviled then ultimately loved by all who give it a chance to work its way into their lives. 

We love you for trying, and we’re trying to love you back.

HeCTA have also announced a performance at Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, on September 11, and at Ritournelle in Bochum, Germany on August 14.

The Diet:

01 Till Someone Gets Hurt
02 Sympathy for the Auto Industry
03 Prettyghetto
04 Like You’re Worth It
05 The Concept
06 Change is in Our Pocket
07 We Are Glistening
08 Give Us Your Names
09 We Bitched We Bovvered and We Buildered

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