A Chat with Wenallt Star (10.09.25)
Finding the intersection between literature and music, singer-songwriter and author David Lambert delivers a sound that is as experimental and eclectic as it is sophisticated and charming. We speak with Lambert, performing as Wenallt Star, about his single, ‘ALL GONE/THAT TIME/THOSE PEOPLE’, upcoming plans, collaborations and more.
OSR: The new single ‘ALL GONE/THAT TIME/THOSE PEOPLE’ has a very reflective tone. What drew you to Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn as the source material for this track?
Lambert: The project is about research. I was looking for novels that addressed the themes and issues found in my novel – love, identity, memory, bisexuality, deceit, growing old, the banality of life, love lost.. Quartet in Autumn has these four ageing people, work colleagues, not necessarily friends, who fumble through life; being ordinary, being ill, hurt, betrayed in the most seemingly banal ways. Barbara Pym casts this gentle, dusty spotlight on these four lives, and I used their sense of regret to inform the 324 words I cut up from the 65,280 words in the novel to produce a spoken text that resonated and linked to the other 13 texts on the album. In this instance, bringing to the fore this notion of memory (something captured profoundly in the composition ‘THEN, BUT VERY MUCH NOW. NOW, BUT VERY MUCH THEN’), with Lucy’s vocals wondrously melancholic. I wanted a doleful vocal by way of an introduction to the tale, so I cut up the existing cut-up texts to produce a suite of haiku for Lucy to read.
OSR: You’ve said the cut-up technique was central to this project. How did reshaping existing texts into new micro-fictions influence the emotional direction of the music?
Lambert: The process was to research and find 14 novels that linked thematically with my novel. Read the 14 novels in 14 weeks, writing down lines, words, phrases, sayings as I read. Then spend a week on each text, reading all the random words from the 14 novels, editing or shaping the words into a narrative that aligned with the themes and issues. I then spent a further 14 weeks reading what I had edited until I had 14 texts that told the story I wanted to tell. Those 14 spoken texts, or micro-fictions, became the album … all her geese are swans.
OSR: The track blends 80s influences, TR808s, Human League, China Crisis, with spoken word. What made you lean into that particular sonic palette?
Lambert: Mmm, yes, a bit of a funny story. Sean (Sean South, the album’s executive producer and co-composer on some compositions) and I laugh when we think about this now. I was really happy with the spoken text and had shared it with Sean. He had this Nine Inch Nails thing going on in his head, whilst I had been listening to Kelly Lee Owens. We went into the studio and knocked it about for a long time. We sent Lucy the initial spoken text parts to sing, which sounded great. I then sent her the haiku to read before the singing section. Sean found this melody, followed by a sound lighter than Trent and heavier than Kelly, which we developed. What we had sounded very 80s, so we embraced it.
OSR: Lucy Leland’s vocal performance adds a deep pathos to the song. How did you work together to balance the spoken and sung elements?
Lambert: As with the whole creative process, it was part planned, part good fortune. The composition’s structure came quickly. Lucy really got stuck into the composition and came up with some beautiful general suggestions, as well as her vocals. The text took us down a particular road, something that gets developed even further in the video for the composition. The video needs to be acknowledged. Rob Pitman, Sam Atkins and Laura Turner produced a powerful piece of moving image. Go check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYChfvcCbbk
There are a few lines where Lucy and I recorded them separately, with Sean dropping them into the mix to find they landed perfectly without having touched them. They simply fitted. A very special moment, and that’s how this track, and indeed, a high percentage of the whole album happened. It was a real joy working on this.
OSR: The Welsh refrain gives the track a cultural resonance. Can you talk us through the process of incorporating the language and consulting Gareth David Potter?
Lambert: I was born in Cardiff, Wales, yet I don’t speak Welsh. I’ve travelled and lived in various countries, proudly correcting people when they assumed I was English, yet I was unable to speak the language. There was a moment when I was in the Atlas Mountains when the Moroccan guide asked me where I was from, and when I told him, he began to talk to me in Welsh, with me having to explain to him that I did not speak the language. So it’s always been something I’ve carried with me. For this composition, I spent time with Gareth and Sean on ensuring the song contained the Welsh language, something we believe brought a powerful moment at the heart of the composition.
OSR: Collaboration seems to be at the heart of the whole album, involving musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists. How did working with such a wide range of creatives shape your vision?
Lambert: From writing a novel on my own for the past two years, I was now working with a dozen creatives. Giving them a similar brief to cut up what we were working on ensured both project fidelity and the opportunity to explore new creative avenues. I may have had the vision to create a spoken text album set to diverse musical settings, but I had no idea how grand and diverse that vision could become. Collaboration, free of ego, is a beautiful thing!
OSR: This single, like much of the album, reflects on illness, ageing, and lost love. Were these themes already present in your novel, or did they emerge more strongly through the music?
Lambert: Yes, the themes were there from the beginning of the novel. The novel, and therefore the album, not just the single, is about family, what they remember or what they think they remember. Whether they get the opportunity to correct their selected memories before they die, and if remorse finds its way into the picture. Happy memories and not-so-happy memories.
OSR: You’ve described the making of this album as a response to the solitude of writing your second novel. How did stepping away from the novel into music change your relationship with your own creativity?
Lambert: I’ve worked with music projects in the past. I was the lead singer in a South Wales punk band in the mid-70s. I had an album released in 2000 with Michael Alig, and a collection of my poems and short stories from a book I had published was set to a jazz/rock setting, so I enjoy word/music collaborations. This project, though, is something else. Next level stuff, really! My only concern is whether I will ever get back to finishing the novel!
OSR: Your journey started with literature, then shifted into music. Do you see these 14 tracks as companion pieces to your unfinished novel, or as their own standalone work?
Lambert: Yes! I am currently in discussion with people about an immersive novel. Having said that, the album is out there and I would love people to listen to it, love it, share it – what artist doesn’t? In fact, people can go to https://wenalltstar.com/new-album-out-now-all-her-geese-are-swans and get the whole album at the moment as a free download.
OSR: Looking ahead, with the album, …all her geese are swans, now out, and this single freshly released, what do you hope listeners take away from Wenallt Star’s music?
Lambert: The album …all her geese are swans consists of 14 very different compositions. My hope is that there’s something on the album that people can immediately connect with, and that their curiosity will be captured and they’ll find something new that surprises them enough to share the album with others.
Many thanks to David Lambert for speaking with us. Find out more about Wenallt Star on his official website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Spotify.
