WHEN is a double album not a double album? When the whimsical Kurt Wagner says so, even though the call-and response albums Aw CMon and No, You C'Mon are not available separately but as a dual package instead.

Wagner had set himself the challenge of writing a song a day for nine months on his Nashville porch when his country-soul collective, Lambchop, were additionally invited to provide a live score for FW Murnau's venerable silent movie, Sunrise.

That may explain the proliferation of instrumentals among the 24 tracks, but to add to the whimsy, Wagner does not split the two easy-rolling records into soundtrack and studio albums.

Aw CMon has more of the drifting string and piano pieces and is all too torpid.

You wish for the old spark that made way for sweetly soulful elegance on the shimmering Nixon and Is A Woman albums. Thankfully, the more playful No You CMon remembers to rock on Nothing Adventurous Please and Shang A Dang Dang, and you fall in love with the Cmon people all over again.

Updated: 09:09 Thursday, February 12, 2004