About We Were Enchanted:
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about "Night (Rhombus cover)"
If we rolled credits here, the credits would be a simple font, white on black, all-caps with just the slightest serif curls, like Spring had begun to flower (which it has), like today had begun to tomorrow (which it has), like our lovers all sing in birdsong (which they do), like our whistles are small hymns (which they are), like a gathering of friends, all singing together, is equal to a climax, is all you need in a life to make it a story, to make it have mattered & rung, rung, rung.
- Sean Michaels, Said the Gramophone
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We Were Enchanted sees the Chicago collective taking a huge step forward and truly embracing their spirit. While Kent is still the principle songwriter, the whole album simply feels like a whole album, as made by likeminded people grooving on their own vibe. The debut obviously had its charms, enough that it caught the attention of a major-player indie label, but this work is richer and fuller across the board. Where once songs centered on old drum machines, cutesy synths, and Lambert’s existential malaise, with the odd bit of banjo or guitar seemingly tacked on by obligation, We Were Enchanted is bursting with live drums and strings, with heavy presence of guitar and graceful touches of piano, Wurlitzer, bells, Buchla Music Box, bassoon, ukulele, and musical saw care of twenty-odd guest musicians, including members of Califone and Fruit Bats. Of course, there are still Kent’s vocals and a ton of electronic sounds; they simply appear on an even plane here, fleshing out the compositions into fully-realized works instead of self-serving personal goals.
"New Steam" is practically a work of modern classical. It begins humbly enough with some plucked strings, bathtub bass, and bassoon, eventually launching into sweeping violin movements, a raunchy moog bass, and a light electric guitar riff. Overall, the track sounds like a Roommate cover of a lost track from Beck’s Sea Change. "Tea Leaves" is equally remarkable. It kicks off with two minutes of glitchy, ambient 8-bit synth-cum-Logic electronica, then stops on a dime and twists into a piano-driven saloon rock-down, the likes of which would re-inspire Paul Williams. Glorious.
With hardly a chorus in sight, Kent’s ongoing lyrical narrative, undeniable programming improvement (far fewer preset sounds), and eclectic, anything-goes studio attitude result in a solid work, improving over the debut in every way. They don’t even belong on the same shelf as each other. If Songs The Animals Taught Us impressed you, We Were Enchanted will turn your head into a cloud of sparks and gold dust. You shouldn’t put faith in fickle pixies, but you should trust your new Roommate.
- Filmore Mescalito Holmes, Tiny Mix Tapes
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In 2006 Roommate -- which was at that point really the solo project of Kent Lambert -- issued the excellent Songs the Animals Taught Us, an album that was simultaneously full and sparse, which supplemented the electronic elements with various organic strings and layered vocals. In early 2007, Lambert, who by this time had assembled a full band, put out a digital-only EP which hinted at the direction things were headed, a direction only fully realized on We Were Enchanted, a wonderfully complete, intricate album that makes Songs look unfinished and bare in comparison.Typical song structure and set verses, choruses and breaks are not a main consideration for Lambert, but his sense of melody -- one that makes even the most rambling passages coherent -- and his arrangements give all the tracks on We Were Enchanted a purpose, an understanding that they're part of the bigger whole.
The songs build and grow, only collapsing just before they've reached their zenith; it's a living, breathing work, one that develops and grows with the passage of time and with the listener, a complete but not completed picture, leaving room for interpretation and exploration and all the other things that make truly good music so lasting...
- Marisa Brown, All Music Guide
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[Title track "We Were Enchanted"] is basically an eight-minute series of stacked crescendos, beginning with a stuttering electronic drum pattern, a slow, seesawing riff on distorted synth, and Lambert wearily intoning, “It’s been happening a lot lately / Just before I wake up / I see the most terrible things.” With each new verse, more sounds accumulate—mostly digital keyboards, but I think I hear harpsichord and saw—and eventually the tension ramps up to a ridiculous level in a passage built on rapid, cycling arpeggios. Then the whole thing breaks open, like storm clouds parting to reveal the sun, and the song turns suddenly, gorgeously hopeful, with radiant major-key chords overlaid on its taut minor-key patterns. “There is beauty all around / Even when we wandered in a terrible trance,” Lambert sings. The effect is something like having your most depressive friend ask if you wanna go to the park and throw a Frisbee around.
...When Lambert and the band sing “We’re all real tired of the shitty stuff,” the words seem to sum up their determination to survive and even be happy in a hopelessly messed-up world, pursuing the kind of modest, local, cooperative effort that’s helped Roommate flourish.
- Miles Raymer, Chicago Reader
About New Steam (EP):
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On New Steam, Lambert records and arranges with a full (albeit eclectic) band, bringing an oftentimes organic sound to his configuration of electronic beeps and whirls. Strings and bassoon pave the way on the title cut, on which Lambert's ability to make simple lines ("I'd like to sleep tonight/I've been staring at the news for days") seem much more meaningful, with his use of space and double-tracking, is striking. But where he and the band really shine is on the two covers on the album, the brilliant 21st century neo-gothic campfire song "Until Then" (originally by Broadcast), complete with canjo, banjo, and tambourine, and the Red Red Meat track made über-indie electronic "Quarter Horses (B-Slow)." It's an interesting move from Songs the Animals Taught Us, focusing more on chords and orchestral-like arrangements rather than computerized wanderings, and, at least in four tracks, promises for an interesting future.
- Marisa Brown, All Music Guide
- If Roommate's new EP is any hint, there's a monster of a full-length somewhere on the horizon.
- Daniel McSwain, Future Perfect Radio
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If you've been unaware of Kent Lambert, it might be safe to be reassured that his sophomore LP scheduled for release in the fall [umm, more like spring 2008], is an expansion -- all signs point to maturity -- because his band has grown from one and his voice has loosened, has a nascent breath. The evidence, the disarmingly great New Steam EP to be released electronically at the end of the month, is disarming because of its breadth, an exploration of a comfortably claustrophobic sound that, while still relatively tiny, creates an amalgam any solid EP should be: a whetting for the eardrums so that future noise involves a healthier snap.
Kent's never sounded so confident with his vocals... his tonal control is masterful for such a thin voice, his harmonies subtle and soothing. Maybe a solo artist culling a local band from bright-eyed cronies and then aiming for something organic and wide to temper the sterility often plaguing accessible instruments and methods is a predictable maturity. And maybe I'm just glad Kent's aiming for the target I always knew he'd had in his sights.
Emidio Anotci" is a weightless addendum, an instrumental passage intended, we're told, for a film about an old Roman in remembrance. While it never really achieves any somnambulant or nostalgic mood, it does quickly establish a chain of feelings that may, come new LP time, link into something heady, substantial, and exciting. Good job, EP, you've baited my anticipation. I hope a lot of people download you.
- Dom Sinacola, cokemachineglow, February 10, 2007
About Songs the animals taught us:
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Judging from the content of Songs the Animals Taught Us, the animals know much more than we've ever given them credit for. On Roommate's debut album, sole band member Kent Lambert conveys the frustrations of an insightful artist who has seemingly become disaffected by the political economy in which he lives. By piecing together communicative music with contemplatively poignant lyrics like "status hounds with mouths of foam / will lead the squatters to their thrones..." he has opened a dialogue that is as engaging as it is culturally relevant. Inside the lush electronic scenery of the opening song, "Tuesday," Lambert exposes a general apathy felt by some Americans toward a war that is taking place on another country's soil. While such a war continues to be waged, the subject of "Tuesday" agonizes over the numerous and comparatively trivial options of what to eat for lunch. "Hot Commods," arguably the best track from Songs, showcases Lambert's startling production abilities through an agitated battle between a saloon-style piano and an escalating digital distortion while his vocals mockingly describe a Capitalist socialite's vacuous spending habits. His politically charged words, while undeniably critical of our current state of affairs, still manage to relay a sense of hope and optimism: "in our dreams we'll drop the bombs and stop the bleeding / in our dreams we'll write the songs that start the healing..." Lambert's political convictions do not detract from his distinctive musical talent. He succeeds in creative combinations involving a fuzzy, synthesized percussion underneath live instruments like banjo, saw, and xylophone, that blend together to define Roommate's signature sound-an intelligently arranged digitized symphony. If the animals have more songs to teach us, then I'm ready for the next lesson.
- JR, RE:UP Manual #11, July 2006
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...as you listen the beats become stranger, more compelling and more fragmented, and lyrics that at first seem harmlessly nonsensical turn out to be full of barbs about consumerism and life in wartime. It's a somewhat inscrutable album, and one that never fully declares its purpose or settles into any easily graspable pattern, but it's a more intriguing listen for that inscrutability.
- Thomas Bartlett, Salon.com, July 11, 2006
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Grandaddy may have called it quits, but Jason Lytle's keyboard loops live on. For proof, see Chicago's Kent Lambert (a.k.a. Roommate), a synth savant with government gripes. His lyrics on Songs the Animals Taught us dwell on upper-class apathy, while his vocals share Lytle's upper register. Lambert's punchy, skewed sounds might annoy before they endear, but once they move in, it's damn tough to get rid of them.
- Magnet, July/August 2006
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" It's all too common, the artist acting as spokesperson for the state of the union, but Kent Lambert, aka Roommate, does a particularly good job of it. Keeping an eye on the minute details of life, Lambert's first release on Plug Research, Songs the Animals Taught Us, is largely a story of reconciling the utopian ideals of childhood with the everyday realities of middle-class America in the twenty-first century, with the lyrical narrative laid over an eclectic soundscape. Traditional guitars meet jarring electronic beats, with a bit of the ethereal thrown in to complete the image." - XLR8R, June 6, 2006
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" If Soft Cell and Radiohead had an affair, Roommate would be their hybrid, and albeit, unusual offspring. Roommate’s new LP Songs the Animals Taught Us arrives just in time to sound off on the current indulgence in 80s referenced production. Blending contemporary urban electronica with drama-pop inspired lyrics, Kent Lambert defies his Midwest roots without insulting them. Tracks like Dinner With Ivan and Typhoon are awash with moody tones and instrumental riffs, taking the listener on a late night drive that could end up at an illegal rooftop party humming with 20-somethings. The album’s intelligence is evident, all the ear candy elements of new wave surrounded by the storytelling of a Wes Anderson film."
-G Money, Indie Buzz, May 31, 2006
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"Songs The Animals Taught Us is the perfect soundtrack for an introvert’s trip to the Promised Land. The songs are quiet and sad, minimalist, but not empty. All the little musical corners are filled up with unexpected sounds.
Although I have never really understood why people who are essentially solo artists give themselves band names, the choice of “Roommate” for Lambert’s project is apt. Lambert cultivates the kind of intimacy with the listener that mimics what happens when you sit around with your housemates during a lull on a Saturday afternoon.
Lambert’s unique voice is the record’s solar plexus. He sounds as if he has taken an impression of Neil Young’s upper register, and filled it in with Wayne Coyne. At times he reminds me of John Davis, the non-Lou Barlow half of the late, great Folk Implosion. He manages to move from sounding like he could care less to singing with complete urgency without any apparent effort.
I was surprised to learn that one of the album’s best tracks, “Dinner With Ivan,” is actually a cover of a song by Big Head Todd and the Monsters. Lambert is so convincing and sincere when he sings that I thought he must have been telling me about his actual dinner with his actual brother. Like Cat Power’s cover of Smog’s “Bathysphere” it seems the song was truly created only for the artist who covered it.
Listening to a record like this certainly makes everything a little easier."
-Oversized Styrofoam Olmecian Dude, Amp Camp
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" Both musically and lyrically, Songs The Animals Taught Us sounds like the work of an artist who has basically absorbed inspiration from a wide variety of different sources and spat them out the other side as something unique. The electronic-tinged pop calls to mind artists like Xiu Xiu (the more gentle side of the group) and Patrick Wolf (with a slightly less dramatic vocal style) while lyrically capturing the frustration and confusion of living in the modern age.
With ten tracks running a brisk forty one minutes, Songs The Animals Taught Us is an inventive and interesting release from a young artist." -Aaron Coleman, Almost Cool, May 25, 2006
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"I like this CD, it's cute and warm… Actually perfect for a long train ride staring out the window going home.
- Amanda Spadaccini, Indie Workshop, May 24, 2006
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"The basic building blocks of this local act's new Songs the Animals Taught Us (Plug Research)--filter-swept analog synths, hella-processed electronic beeps, and the kind of IDM drum programming that's helped make the word "skittery" so popular--don't do much to distinguish the album from any other take on the tech-pop style of Postal Service beat maker Dntel (who's also Roommate's labelmate). What sets it apart and makes it matter is that band captain Kent Lambert is determined to coax something more than the usual romantic solipsism out of the sound. Using unexpected elements like easygoing banjo parts and spaced-out Motown grooves, he crafts woozy sound pieces to back up his paranoid, David Byrne-style musings on the mundane terror of middle-class life during wartime. He sounds like a privileged hipster who's realized there are things in this world more important than his sneaker collection." - Miles Raymer, Chicago Reader, April 27, 2006
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"On first listen, Roommate (the project of Chicago's Kent Lambert) makes electro-pop almost too quirky for its own good, with nonsensical lyrics and too many genres toyed with on the same synthesizers. But the group's new Songs the Animals Taught Us (Plug Research) is quite awesome on multiple listens, veering from simple pop to noisy soundscapes with surprising skill." - Antonia Simigis, TimeOut Chicago , April 27, 2006
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"Lambert is fond of the near-cacophony -- if anything so understated and soft and pretty can actually be called that -- of the various noises and rhythms and bleeps that make up the background of his songs, yet it's done effectively, and with enough chordal breaks that the music isn't messy, just disorganized. It's that type of disorganization, however, that only appears to the outside observer, because anyone actually involved in it knows exactly where everything is and can find it instantly, even if it's in that far corner under the bed. Lambert's voice acts as the flashlight that shines through the dark and dust. It can be high and far away and very Wayne Coyne-ish (in "Status Hounds" or "Molly"), but it can be low and like Dave Gahan's (in "Typhoon"), as well.
Lambert is also able to address a wide range of subjects without seeming overly ambitious. Yes, he has his fair share of abstract lines ("I'm staring at movie screens with faces like birthday cakes and bodies like Christmas Eve and smiles just like Halloween"), but Songs the Animals Taught Us is also a politically charged and sentimental album. Maybe it's because Lambert seems to actually care so much about everything, be it apathy or capitalism or politicians, or his relationship with a woman or his family (in "Dinner with Ivan," a cover of the Big Head Todd & the Monsters that does the original more than justice), that he can cover so many topics and come off as completely sincere in all of them. Songs the Animals Taught Us is a well-made, intelligent, affecting, musically satisfying record that shows off the creativity and talent of Kent Lambert and the other members of the band, and is undoubtedly only an early step in Roommate's sure-to-be outstanding career."
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"As is so common with this kind of music, there is a character-driven sound of a bedroom studio busy at work, imbuing the album with a kind of strange authenticity. It’s lo-fi but the meticulous production makes it incredibly listenable."
- Boomkat
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"Synth tones buck and rear around steady bass pings; they squeal and pull up short, roil in gleaming waves and hunker down in matte dirges, trill like flamenco and skitter like prog. The vocals trade their goofily macabre aspect for more nuanced tones, and the lyrics make their way from absurd to intelligible. It's still kind of ridiculous, but so's that guy making a gravity bong in your bathtub, and you've been living with him for years."
- Brian Howe, track review of "Typhoon", Pitchfork, April 14, 2006
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" Songs the Animals Taught Us works a seductive reasoning over the listener, trumping a firsthand cloud of fancy doohickeys in order to work the audience into more challenging fare. When blips straddle traditional song structures, disobeying best interests and groping good taste, we’re ready for it all, lulled into trusting Kent’s obsequious charm...
The thing about Kent’s voice is not that it is especially fierce or safe from tremors, but that his inflections point to something outside of the “Songs.” He harmonizes with sloppy beauty, usually tucked behind a layer of cacophony before striking from the back with a held, prickled note...
... a truly enjoyable record."
- Dom Sinacola, cokemachineglow, October 27, 2005
About Celebs:
- "Een ontdekking! [...] We plaatsen Roommate graag in het gezelschap van Grandaddy, Vincent Gallo en John Cale." [A discovery! ...to be filed alongside Gd, VG, JC]
- Bram Vermeersch, RifRaf magazine #140, November 2002
- "Ahh the promise of genuine talent! This five track ep is something special alright.
... a delicate young (man's) voice, a piano and some sophisticated extras every now and then (e.g. vibes, the odd harp) are what make this record special. And apart from the musicianship, there's the superb production.
Roommate knows his way with the subject [of celebrity] well enough to expose the phenomenon's less sane edges without being excessive.
... a talent to keep an eye out for.
Roommate has just made one of the most promising debuts of the past few years with his Celebs chronicle."
2002'S BEST NEW RELEASES: #12 - Roommate Celebs
- Patrick Vandenberghe, Uzine
(Uzine review), August 2, 2002
(Uzine interview) August 9, 2002
(Uzine 2002 favelists), December 24, 2002
- "Lambert undercuts his breathless subject matter with a mysterious, wavering treble that sounds a little like Grandaddy. That sheen of unreality is compounded by a shimmering piano-based sound, enhanced by electric flourishes."
- Jennifer Kelly, Splendid Ezine, June 6, 2002
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