Lanterna

by Andy Kellman Henry Frayne's Lanterna is the Midwest counterpart to Scenic's Southwest-inspired soundtracks for a lonely journey through open lands. Combining his background in post-punk and dark dream pop with atmospherics drawing from spaghetti western soundtracks and ambient isolationism, Lanterna's mostly instrumental output generates a variety of moods, ranging from becalmed to unsettling to fiery. Although it wasn't until 1998's self-titled release through Rykodisc that Lanterna received widespread distribution, guitarist Frayne began the project as an alternate outlet outside of his duties in the Moon Seven Times in the early '90s. (Frayne also spent the latter half of the '80s in the 4AD-inspired Area.) With help from bandmates Brendan Gamble on drums and Lynn Canfield on vocals, Frayne recorded a 23-track cassette and released it himself in 1992. Later that year, the limited-edition Of Shapes That Haunt Thought's Wilderness was released through Greece's Elfish label on vinyl only, selecting most of its tracks from the original cassette; Parasol issued 17 songs from the same recording in 1995 on CD, and Rykodisc reissued the Parasol release in 1998. A year prior to the Rykodisc reissue, Lanterna and the like-minded Scenic shared a live split EP released on Independent Project, the label run by Scenic's Bruce Licher. New material didn't surface from Lanterna until 2001's Elm Street, issued by Badman during September of 2001.