John Lambert is Chequerboard, an Irish guitarist/producer and visual artist. Lambert received a music fellowship from the Model Arts & Niland Gallery in Sligo through which year’ course this recording arrives. Pennyblack, his second album, displays artwork, as a cover, from his 2007 Chequerboard art exhibition featuring “textured and intricate montages mapped over old vinyl record covers’. Already the world of Lambert opens up, montages of the past and present creating a visual record, or at least the cover, affixed with the world’ first adhesive stamp, Pennyblack, the missive.
Pennyblack, the track, starts the album with a sample of Lamberts grandfather and folk singer mother, builds guitar layers and weaves electronic melody akin to pianoforte for one finger, synth texture, all while seemingly providing a beat, hand to soundboard. Ornithopter’ electronic nuances dance like a crazed flamenco dancer on a stage of bright tones to the restrained and controlled guitar gently robbing the audience of their senses as Lambert flexes his wings in this attempt to become lighter than air. Konichiwa, also featured on the 2005 ep Dictaphone Showreels (lazybird) utalises found and field recordings as a backdrop for this intricate guitar and electronic ambient soundscape. The Winters Arcade provides a quiet center before the frenetic bright pace of skating couple; harsh glitch beat counterpoint of 20th century artillery and the outro track Toy Winds a melancholic reminiscence.
With the greater pace of the polyfusion attitude and the ability of traditional instrumentalists to wield electronics within their worlds it would seem that the likes of Chequerboard will see the light of day more often than the insistent purism of the electronic only flag bearers.
