Lanterna Hidden Drive LP

Badman is very pleased to announce the release of Champaign, Illinois' Lanterna's seventh album, Hidden Drives. The new album is guitarist Henry Frayne's latest offering as Lanterna, a mostly instrumental side project, begun some thirty years ago. Since the '80s, Frayne has played in Champaign bands such as The Syndicate, ¡Ack-Ack!, Area, and The Moon Seven Times. The past experiences in these bands influenced every song on the forthcoming Hidden Drives as it had with most previous Lanterna albums.

"Hidden Drives features more electric guitar and synthesizer than previous efforts," explains Frayne, and he adds, "Most of the songs were written on an old Gibson SG with or without cascading digital echoes suggesting additional harmonies and melody lines."

Twenty years ago when Lanterna began working with Badman, Frayne enlisted the help of producer/engineer/guitarist Mike Brosco at Waterworks Audio in Champaign, as well as Chicagoan Eric Gebow (Blue Man Group, Mouth Captain) who would drum on Lanterna's Highways, Desert Ocean, and tour the US, and Greece. In 2018 with some of the songs on Hidden Drives already fleshed out with guitar, synthesizer, and bass, Eric Gebow traveled down from Chicago to Waterworks to lay down drums for half of the album's 10 songs. Frayne says, "As the day played out Eric identified 'Redwoods' as a song that needed drums. Being a song with modulated, looping guitar figures, I hadn't thought that drums could be integrated without a blinking bank of computers. Mike Brosco brought up the tracks for 'Redwoods' and Eric performed the lush, driving beat that now defines the song. For me it evokes the feeling of driving down tree lined streets after a summer rain shower."

For five of the songs on Hidden Drives, Frayne asked Mike Brosco to "have some fun" and manipulate the tracks to create five additional remixes to bring the album to a total of 15 tracks. "This gives one a chance to enjoy those instrumental parts that might otherwise go unnoticed on the more upbeat songs. As a listener, I wish more bands would do this," adds Frayne.

The LP version was specifically mastered for vinyl, preserving the highest quality recording pressed for vinyl.