Atlantic
Lanterna
Sands
Somehow, music and the 3 words matched perfectly and I was drawn closer. Further scrutiny revealed the hypnotic song was Atlantic from an album entitled Sands by Lanterna. I immediately clicked on the song or artist link in Spinner and began to read...and listen more.
I relish this first moment of discovery, which has taken on such different forms through the years. From the first glimpses of a song back in the days of AM/FM radio coupled with the DJ's comments, to flipping through LP and later CD bins in the 'record' store (the famed Tower Records & so many others), listening to new material in various music classes and at live shows, and right up to discovering music on the web and now nearly solely depending on it and its various offerings - finding new stuff has always been like mining gold to me.
And so it was when I first heard Lanterna 12 years ago, and their newest album, Sands. 9 perfect instrumental tracks filled with acoustic-electric guitars, simple yet unique drums, swelling ambient space, psychedelic sonic washes, and a wall of reverb. Perfect for a drive down a lonely highway, top down or up. Someone somewhere once described their music as horizon-stretched! What a great visual. I'd say cinematic too. And something about their sound reflects the rolling and promising aspects of our California landscape and climate.
Lanterna is one of a long list of bands & artists that conveniently belong to a sub-genre often referred to as post-rock. As the Wikipedia entry and other descriptions note, post-rock is made up of the typical instruments of rock music (sans vocals), but with different sensibilities in texture, timbre and rhythm. Another way to put it - it's sort of stripped-down rock sprinkled with a touch of melancholy and refreshing new wordless characters added to the stories. Other spot-on adjectives I've run across are dark dream pop and ambient isolationism. Lanterna is essentially the project of midwesterner Henry Frayne, a sublime restless soul of a guitarist-composer he must be. Guitar-afficianados should be intrigued to know that his music owes nods to Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, Neil Young et al. Henry seems to invite various musicians into his fold to produce his recordings, most notably a drummer-percussionist. I was an instant fan of Lanterna, and later some similar outfits, and have since collected all 5 of their albums from 1998 on. Sadly, it's been nearly 8 years since their last release Desert Ocean. No matter, the 58 songs that stretch across 5 hours & 17 minutes have accompanied me plenty on road trips and just seem to fit or create the mood even when idly standing & dreaming by.
As luck would have it, I actually had the chance by happenstance to see the 2-3 guys of Lanterna live and in concert. This might never have happened if I had not moved further north to Long Beach in 2003. I lived in the quaint Belmont Shore neighborhood. Just a stroll along the main drag from my place was a local music & arts/culture store called Fingerprints. As I sometimes did, I wandered in there sometime in late 2003 on my walk home from work at Design Science software. I noticed a flyer of an upcoming in-store performance by Lanterna. What??!! So of course I wandered in again another day to see and hear Henry Frayne and a couple of his music electrons comrades. It was very homespun on the little makeshift 'stage' at the back of the store, and sounded wonderful. It was a true rare treat to catch them. Amazingly, Fingerprints is still in Long Beach (at a new, larger location) selling music and local garb and continues to offer in-store live performances - kudos!
An Amazon reviewer summed up one Lanterna album very well - "It's like a good long supper with wine and candlelight and good food with an intelligent person you're really interested in - there are different moods and rhythms and topics, but overall the feeling is one of being at ease and also very *engaged*."
In all fairness, it wouldn't be right not to mention Signal Hill, an almost sister-like band to Lanterna. While Henry and his Lanterna hasn't released any new music since 2006, Signal Hill is active, with a new album out in 2013, Chase The Ghost. Other notable company includes the southwest's Scenic, who integrate a bit more post-edge and psychedelica into their post-punk. Note especially 2003's The Acid Gospel Experience. I encourage you to give Lanterna and their relatives a listen. It's music that sometimes seems to go nowhere yet transports all the same. Perhaps the sounds will inspire and calm you, whether you're moving at 80 mph or sitting in the still.
Thanks for listening and don't forget to turn the lights out before you press play...
Aurally yours,
david
david@musicelectrons.net
Notable links and tune-age:
- A fairly exhaustive listing of post-rock artists
- Lanterna discography
- An outdated official Lanterna website
- Atlantic, Grey, 1975 and Lonely from Sands
- Luminous and 48th & 8th on Desert Ocean
- Elm Street, B Minor and Smoke from Elm Street
- Brightness, Adriatic and Seasons on Highways
- Dark Spring, Achieving Oneness and Puerto de Luna from Lanterna
(*Spinner, along with other AOL Music properties, was abruptly shut down in April 2013 by its longtime owner.)
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