Lanterns on the Lake

Originally formed in Tyneside in 2007, Lanterns on the Lake combine dreamy, melancholic Indie rock with beautiful layers of texture and celestial melodies that thread around intricate instrumentation. Their fourth studio album Spook The Herd was released in February 2020 to critical acclaim and earned a place on the shortlist for the Mercury Prize.

Throughout their career, the band’s music has been used in soundtracks for film, TV (Conversations with Friends, Uncanny, Made In Chelsea, Skins) and the video game Life Is Strange. They have recorded an orchestral live album with The Royal Northern Sinfonia and played shows opening for Explosions in the Sky, Low and Yann Tiersen.

Lanterns on the Lake released their self-produced and much-anticipated new album, Versions of Us in June 2023. The album’s nine songs are existential meditations examining life’s possibilities, facing the hand we’ve been dealt and the question of whether we can change our individual and collective destinies.

Singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde has no doubt that motherhood fundamentally shifted her perspective. “Writing songs requires a certain level of self-indulgence, and songwriters can be prone to dwelling on themselves,” she says. “Motherhood made me aware at having a different stake in the world. I’ve got to believe that there’s a better way and an alternative future to the one we’ve been hurtling towards. I’ve also got to believe that I could be better as a person, too.” Mixed by the band’s guitarist Paul Gregory, in the bedroom of his home in North Shields, there is a sense of time and place that runs deep throughout this record.