In 2000, I went to Europe to ride around with a Norwegian band that my friend Rolf managed. Along the way, I met many new and interesting people who would become great friends and remain friends today. Krister Mörtsell was in a hardcore band called Soapbox from Umea, Sweden, home to Refused and a burgeoning hardcore punk scene. I returned to Sweden in late 2001, meeting Krister in Stockholm and later going to visit him in Umea. If you are Swedish and have ever bought one of the Burnt Toast Vinyl releases, chances are that Krister and his Do You Dream of Noise? distribution sold you that record.

Krister and I participate in a secret ftp site where many live recordings are traded and new material from our various music projects are exchanged. The Magic Lantern began as an improvisation project with Krister and several friends recording live directly to minidiscs and caught my attention. They began to release a series of limited edition cd-r releases capturing their improvisations and these quickly sold out. We discussed a few possibilities for releases. I decided that they should be part of this 2xLP four band, four cdep series and introduced to the American indie rock world.

The Magic Lantern’s first few cd-r releases were entirely improvised and recorded live using overhead microphones. This self-titled debut was recorded with six musicians in their Umea rehearsal space. Improvisation is still a main force is the composition of new material, but the songs have solidified and developed from that initial point. Sections from their improvised performances were selected and perfected with the resulting recording captured in more conventional multi-tracked recording sessions. Influences range from post-rock, kraut rock, and spacerock to experimental noise, ambient, and even industrial music.

The photos for this release were taken by Norwegian photographer Ben Sand, a common friend of both the band and the label. Ben has visited Sweden, been on tour with Soapbox, and travelled to India with Simon of The Magic Lantern and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Belgium, and the US with Scott from Burnt Toast Vinyl. His travel photos were taken with his Russian Lomo camera and cross-developed using slide film to heighten the color contrast. This is truly an international release with tight friendships between the band, label, and artist.

This is part of a four instrumental band series where each band was commissioned to fill an LP side with new music. Burnt Toast Vinyl will be releasing the four bands together as one double-LP set, but also as individual cdeps. The series includes Foxhole's Push/Pull, The Magic Lantern's s/t, Soporus' Atómové Elektrárne, and Questions in Dialect's The Ghost Wishes to Speak.

--Scott Hatch, Burnt Toast Vinyl