Lambert

Mystery envelops the identity of a Northern German neo-classical pianist who conceals his features behind a handmade Sardinian leather mask adorned with antlers. Somber, introspective miniatures in a Chopin-esque vein first surfaced under the Lambert moniker during 2014 via Berlin's independent Staatsakt imprint; Universal's Mercury KX imprint later folded him into its roster of kindred spirits, among them Ólafur Arnalds and Sebastian Plano, in 2017. By placing felt inside the piano he produced a muted, softened timbre, and his initial recordings presented this delicate, hypnotic approach in solitary settings. As the decade progressed, however, his work grew steadily more collaborative, culminating in the 2020 album False, which placed a distinct guest performer on each of its fourteen tracks.

Paul Tony Lambert came into the world in 1983 in Northern Germany and relocated to Berlin while still in his early twenties. Years of jazz-piano study and stints drumming in garage-rock bands preceded his abandonment of both styles in favor of a minimalist, modern-classical language. At the outset he was asked by indie acts to recast their songs in this manner, the Anglo-American duo Rue Royale being the first to enlist him, in 2013, for a fresh rendering of their single "Set Out to Discover." Comparable assignments for Me and My Drummer and Bonaparte yielded Lambert's self-titled Staatsakt debut in 2014 together with original score music for Sonja Heiss's comedy Hedi Schneider Is Stuck. Portions of that music resurfaced on September 2015's Stay in the Dark, an album written and tracked entirely after dark. At that same moment Lambert began discreetly exploring studio treatments, audible for instance in the reversed piano tones that appear on the track "Noise."

Output for 2016 remained relatively modest, opening with April's Lost Tapes, the last Lambert title to appear on Staatsakt. Issued initially in limited form without printed track titles, the collection was presented as an EP despite housing seventeen concise pieces. October brought Excess on the Belgian tape label Dauw, a set said to have been improvised amid heavy drinking. Far more marketable was 2017's Sweet Apocalypse, his Mercury KX debut, which incorporated greater quantities of drums, strings, and brass. The following year We Share Phenomena appeared as a joint credit with Brookln Dekker of Rue Royale, whose vocals occupied the standard edition while an instrumental counterpart was released simultaneously. Solo EPs Alone and Alone II flanked September 2019's True and the Tom Oxenham-directed mockumentary Becoming Lambert that accompanied it. In 2020 Lambert released False, his most wide-ranging statement to date, enlisting fourteen newly signed Mercury KX artists across its tracks.