Biography
Drawing on the folk leanings of Neil Young alongside the instrumental textures of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Low, Lanterns on the Lake pair songwriter Hazel Wilde’s brooding vocals with layered arrangements. Their debut full-length, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, surfaced in 2011. The group sustained a characteristically dreamy and delicate atmosphere across the following decade, though their more expansive third album, Beings, emerged in 2015. Heightened socio-political strains shaped the Mercury Prize-nominated Spook the Herd in 2020, while motherhood shaped Versions of Us, co-produced by Phil Selway and issued in 2023.
The Newcastle-based collective formed in 2007 when musicians who had previously performed in separate local acts began working together. Vocalist and guitarist Hazel Wilde, then engaged to Paul Gregory on guitars and electronics, shared a prior band with drummer Oliver Ketteringham. Wilde and violinist Sarah Kemp had known each other since school, and the lineup was rounded out by brothers Brendan on bass and Adam Sykes on guitar and vocals. Operating in a strictly D.I.Y. manner with limited resources, the group borrowed an 8-track recorder and tracked their initial releases—the Starlight EP in 2009 and Misfortunes & Minor Victories in 2010—inside domestic spaces and an abandoned Northumberland house. They pressed the records with handmade artwork and staged performances in unconventional venues, among them a boathouse on the Tyne River and Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub, steadily building an audience.
After signing with Bella Union in the U.K. and receiving a recording budget, Lanterns on the Lake nevertheless captured their 2011 debut, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, in similarly makeshift locations that included living rooms, bedrooms, and the basement of a Newcastle shop. Gregory handled production duties and expanded the instrumental palette to encompass guitars, violin, mandolin, piano, synths, and glockenspiels. Recurring maritime and aquatic imagery throughout the band’s output gained additional resonance once Wilde and Gregory moved to the coast.
Brendan and Adam Sykes departed in 2012, yet the remaining members continued, issuing the sophomore album Until the Colours Run in 2013. When Kemp exited the following year, strings player Angela Chan and bassist Bob Allan joined the official roster. Beings, recorded in seclusion at the band’s Newcastle rehearsal space and again produced by Gregory, appeared in 2015; Live with Royal Northern Sinfonia followed a year later.
Reuniting all five members from the Beings era, the fourth studio album Spook the Herd was released on Bella Union in early 2020. Marking the first time the group tracked material outside Newcastle, the sessions took place at a Yorkshire studio with engineer Joss Worthington and were produced internally. The record earned a Mercury Prize shortlisting. In May 2023 they returned with Versions of Us, co-produced by Radiohead’s Phil Selway, who also played drums; the album captured Wilde’s altered outlook as a parent.
The Newcastle-based collective formed in 2007 when musicians who had previously performed in separate local acts began working together. Vocalist and guitarist Hazel Wilde, then engaged to Paul Gregory on guitars and electronics, shared a prior band with drummer Oliver Ketteringham. Wilde and violinist Sarah Kemp had known each other since school, and the lineup was rounded out by brothers Brendan on bass and Adam Sykes on guitar and vocals. Operating in a strictly D.I.Y. manner with limited resources, the group borrowed an 8-track recorder and tracked their initial releases—the Starlight EP in 2009 and Misfortunes & Minor Victories in 2010—inside domestic spaces and an abandoned Northumberland house. They pressed the records with handmade artwork and staged performances in unconventional venues, among them a boathouse on the Tyne River and Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub, steadily building an audience.
After signing with Bella Union in the U.K. and receiving a recording budget, Lanterns on the Lake nevertheless captured their 2011 debut, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, in similarly makeshift locations that included living rooms, bedrooms, and the basement of a Newcastle shop. Gregory handled production duties and expanded the instrumental palette to encompass guitars, violin, mandolin, piano, synths, and glockenspiels. Recurring maritime and aquatic imagery throughout the band’s output gained additional resonance once Wilde and Gregory moved to the coast.
Brendan and Adam Sykes departed in 2012, yet the remaining members continued, issuing the sophomore album Until the Colours Run in 2013. When Kemp exited the following year, strings player Angela Chan and bassist Bob Allan joined the official roster. Beings, recorded in seclusion at the band’s Newcastle rehearsal space and again produced by Gregory, appeared in 2015; Live with Royal Northern Sinfonia followed a year later.
Reuniting all five members from the Beings era, the fourth studio album Spook the Herd was released on Bella Union in early 2020. Marking the first time the group tracked material outside Newcastle, the sessions took place at a Yorkshire studio with engineer Joss Worthington and were produced internally. The record earned a Mercury Prize shortlisting. In May 2023 they returned with Versions of Us, co-produced by Radiohead’s Phil Selway, who also played drums; the album captured Wilde’s altered outlook as a parent.
Albums
Singles
