Backyards

Independent Project Records is pleased to announce a vinyl edition of Backyards, the beautiful new album from Champaign, Illinois' Lanterna. On the ten-song collection (licensed from Badman Recording Company's instrumental label Jemez Mountain), multi-instrumentalist Henry Frayne crafts landscape of warm, instrumental tapestries. Backyards is the fifth Lanterna album to be released by Badman / Jemez Mountain, and the first of them to be released on vinyl.

For Frayne, the inception of Backyards began almost a decade ago and is a culmination of his career as a versatile musician best known for blending genres and guitar styles to create layers of airy overtones. Frayne composed the underlying textures of the record with a heavy influence from the Nashville tuning-the practice of utilizing very light strings to produce an angelic sound. Frayne learned the technique from bandmate Brendan Gamble during their time in The Moon Seven Times.

The cinematic photos of Boston-based Kevin Salemme have graced several Lanterna releases and Backyards is no exception. Bruce Licher, guitarist of the band Scenic and of Licher Art & Design (and of Independent Project fame) once again stepped in to design the album artwork. Lanterna has always been about taking a journey through sound, and through these photographic images Salemme and Licher hold up their end of the bargain.

"Flurries of rippling arpeggios, rich ringing chord clusters and long, sustained single notes that hang in the air" -San Francisco Chronicle.