Roommate

Roommate originated in 2000 as the alter ego and project of Colorado Springs native Kent Lambert, a University of Iowa graduate then employed in New York City at a film distribution company’s acquisitions department. While there he started composing short songs that his Brooklyn roommate and University of Iowa classmate Noah Minnick urged him to capture on tape. Attendance at a premiere featuring Summer Phoenix, River Phoenix’s sister, along with an unexpected sighting of other Phoenix family members, prompted Lambert to write “RP (Forget the Metaphors)” and recognize that his growing collection of fame-oriented material warranted an EP. He issued that EP, Celebs, himself in August 2001 under the Roommate name, just prior to relocating to Chicago. Although he invested little effort in promotion, a copy reached the Studio Brussel program Duyster and earned favorable notice. In 2004 Lambert, who also works as an experimental filmmaker, expanded Roommate into a performing ensemble and commenced Midwest tours. Fresh Produce Records, based in Chicago, reissued Celebs in 2006, the same year Lambert’s group delivered the full-length Songs the Animals Taught Us via Plug Research. Early the following year the digital-only EP New Steam appeared, revealing the more organic and expansive sonic direction the band had adopted, and twelve months later the album We Were Enchanted was released.