Lambert the neo-classical musician offers his music to the short film ‘Blood Steel’
Lambert’s first, self-titled album was purely piano, with a very impressionistic, Chopin style feel to it. Then Stay In The Dark expanded on this with the addition of electronics and some woodwind. “This is extended for the third album,” Lambert reveals. “Sometimes it’s almost symphonic in character, but it always comes back to being a very plain piano record.”
BEHIND THE MASK
The masked Lambert persona on stage, and even the music of Lambert himself, was in fact something that came about almost unplanned.
“When I started writing the music, I didn’t have a concrete plan of releasing it,” Lambert continues. “I also didn’t know about this upcoming neo-classical scene, which was already there by that time. Lambert’s mask is a way of easing the process of playing such raw, personal material on stage. Although he also tells me he believes anyone who performs wears a mask, in a sense:
“I was researching it, and one day I had in my hands a book on Sardinian mask culture during carnival. I went through the book and saw the one I wanted, so then I searched the internet for ages for someone who could make it. In the end, I found a guy in a tiny Sardinian town, close to where the mask culture originated. I spoke to him about how I wanted the horns, and the patterns, and he was really happy to be part of the project.”
Lambert has an interesting take on why Berlin has become the hub for this particular style of music.
“Well, apart from techno, I think neo-classical is the only music that is known in other countries. In Berlin, there are a lot of rock bands, but people would never care about that,” he laughs. “Neo-classical and techno both fit the cliché of the German artist: someone who is really into his instrument, and all the technical parts of it.”
