Lambert

Since 2000, we have been living in the post-apocalypse. An apocalypse that, however, never actually happened. No global system crash, no aliens, no gigantic meteor, no extinguishing of our sun. Not even our favorite old pair of pants is completely worn out. Of course, this doesn't mean that the fear of the end of the world has disappeared – quite the opposite: People's fear of other people and what they get up to all day long is immense. And with Mother Nature, you never know what she's up to either. Not to mention the cosmic radiation in the background. As a pianist, explicitly approaching grand themes is always a bit difficult. The soul, after all, doesn't differentiate between a tiger attack, a nasty letter from the bank, or a dirty look from a neighbor. If a person feels threatened, they become afraid. And what instills fear in people today – at least in our latitudes – is becoming increasingly abstract, leading to an ever more diffuse existential anxiety. On "Sweet Apocalypse," Lambert intimately confronts these fears, many of which are known to haunt us from the past far into the present, across 12 compositions. Sometimes he offers comfort, sometimes he gently strokes the cat named Melancholy, sometimes he develops an oversized pathos from fear, allowing us to unexpectedly float above things. On his third album – the first he recorded for the London-based label Mercury KX – the masked pianist Lambert once again impressively proves that he can play the complete emotional keyboard of life with enormous ease. His knack for small, grand melodies remains extraordinary. With this exceptional talent, one constantly gets the feeling that he will never run out of delicate melodies. And one wouldn't expect that from this horned, bulky appearance. Of course, that's mainly due to his Sardinian carnival mask, which makes him look like the Beast from the world-famous French fairy tale. But as they say, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Again and again, fans and media become curious and want to see the person behind the mask, but secretly they all wish that Lambert would continue to play with his mask on forever, and that we could shed our fear of his slightly eerie appearance piece by piece, note by note. To finally shed the fear of the tender beast within us, which lives under the hard asphalt and concrete crust in a dark cave, and to love it as it is. The Berlin artist Moki has created associative, surreal visual worlds for the musical pieces, somewhere between Pierre Pairlaut ("Fantastic Planet"), Maurice Sendak ("Where the Wild Things Are"), and dystopian 80s insurance wall calendars, in which one can visually confront the uncanny while listening. Moki was involved early in the album's creation process. She heard initial sketches of the songs and started painting. Lambert visited the studio and added small sound details to his recordings – inspired by her visual transformations: a choir voice here, an echo effect there. Or he even composed a complete brass section. Thus, "Sweet Apocalypse" ultimately became a wonderful Gesamtkunstwerk with which we will long await what we all probably fear deep down. Until then, when the last piece has finished playing, we can simply start all over again. Yes, tomorrow is another day. At least, it was yesterday.