A connection sparked 10 years ago in a tiny Utrecht club has flickered into a cross-country collaboration and a disarming debut from Lambert And Dekker. That the pair never set foot in the same studio but wrote ‘We Share Phenomena’ via iPhone messages belies the beguiling atmospherics and bold tones that drift from the speakers. Berlin-based Lambert, a mask-wearing pianist at the fore of the neo-classical movement, and singer Brookln Dekker, one-half of acclaimed Anglo-American outfit Rue Royale, describe themselves as a ‘host’ duo who have fleshed into something beyond the sum of their parts.
FACTS:
1: Lambert: I was wrong about the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Dekker: I am blind in my right eye from a run-in with a dart.
2: L: The indian defense, is the best chess opening for black, just beware of f3!
D: Fig jam is my jam.
3: L: The bavarian ‘Weisswurst’ is the best wurst in the universe!
D: Chicago (where I’m from) is called the ‘Windy City’ not because of the late-effect wind but because the politicians who were ‘full of hot air’.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
L: A good Sound and a good Instrument!
D: The feeling I get during and after making music. It’s like a feeling of completeness.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
L: I was forced into it by the age of 4, slowly started to enjoy it by the age of 13. I had to take a lot of boring piano lessons. With 13 I wanted to quit and play the drums, my parents allowed me to plearn drums, when I continue piano lessons with a new teacher. That guy got me into improvisation and Jazz Music. My parents got annoyed of me doing music all day from that time on…
D: I grew up in a musical home. Not sure when I switched and began making it my own but looking back I can see signs as early as 9 or 10 years old.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
L: Bill Evans – Explorations
Everything from Glenn Gould playing Bach
Fionn Regan – The End of History
Jan Johansson – Jazz på Svenska
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
L: I feel there is a certain tolerance among the people living here for understanding that it might be necessary to do whatever you feel like doing.
D: For me, Berlin is a collaborative city. I’m always there working with other musicians and writers.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
L: My Studio in Neukölln and Flugfeld Tempelhof.
D: I’m always in studios or venues when I’m in Berlin.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
L: I’d like to become a metaphysician.
D: Maybe study psychology.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
L: The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream
D: Hundred Acres by S. Carey.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
L: Paul McCartney.
D: To collaborate with Judy Garland would’ve been wild.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
L: Elbphilharmonie Hamburg (23.12.2017)! Epic!
D: Wilco at a small venue in St. Louis, Missouri in the 90’s.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
L: I use it to record my music. So it is useful but the creation of my music is not depending on it.
D: Very.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
L: I have innumerable many brothers. They think I am weird, but they always knew that I wouldn’t have succeeded as a metaphysician…
D: I have 2 younger sisters. They are both supportive and I guess they think I’m a little mad as well.
Catch Lambert & Dekker at Burg Schnabel on Wednesday, 14h November 2018!
Photo © Andreas Hornoff
