BLM:50 RAISE THE BLACK LANTERN

Celebrating 50 releases (and more!) by Black Lantern Music, established in 2009 by a collective of Scottish producers and emcees. 

Over the years we have released a massive range of hip-hop, electronic and experimental music, taking in styles as diverse as jazz, techno, crunk, future bass, synth-pop, electro, alt.rap, math-rock, dark synth, chillwave, dubstep, ambient and doomcrunk… and that’s just scratching the surface.

If you’ve never heard Black Lantern before, consider this an introduction - if you’ve been along for the ride for a while, we hope you’ll find some old favourites.

We’re a home for experimental music from Scotland and around the world - we have artists as far away as Canada, Ukraine, the USA, France, and Russia, as well as local talent from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Fife and beyond.

This Black Lantern ‘best of’ features 50 tracks, some from across our back catalogue, plus a few exclusives. It’s available from our Bandcamp as a pay-what-you-want download. We release most of our music free of charge, and when we do charge, that money goes straight to the artists.



We’re raising funds for a website re-launch - if you can donate some money in exchange for these 50 tracks, we’d very much appreciate it. We’ll be re-launching our website in 2013, and announcing some exciting new developments - by contributing, you’re helping us take Black Lantern to the next level, and supporting independent artists.

To our listeners worldwide - we thank you for all of your support, and we’ll see you at 100! We’ve got a special, limited-edition physical release planned for our centenary… we hope you’ll stick around to see what we’ve created for you!

BLACK LANTERN LOGO CREATED BY INKMOTH

THE BLM FAMILY WOULD LIKE TO THANK: Cook, Owen Green, Alex Burden, FMA, Ally McCrae, Muslim Alim, Vic Galloway, The Skinny, James & Andrew Wyllie, Chris Knight, Billy Jam, Plague Language, Dogma crew, ETC crew, Abaga, Phuturelabs, Aural Sects, Shallow Rave, Nora and co. at Henry’s Cellar Bar, Dangerous Minds, the denizens of Whitechapel, Jungle & Wobbles crew, Burst Radio, Subcity Radio, Radio Magnetic, SubFM, Warlock, NoYeahNo and the whole Rag & Bone fam, Blackmass Plastics, Liz Berg, our Twitter RT crew, our dedicated Facebook group fam, and most of all to our fans and followers, and anyone we may have missed - we appreciate your support!

BURNING BRIGHT - NEW EP OUT 6TH JUNE!

Burning Bright, aka producer SalemAnders and rapper Tickle (whose magnificent Red River EP is still available free!), have a new EP out on 6th of June, called FREESMILES.

Here we have an exlclusive preview for you of the first track from the release, entitled ‘Apathetic’!

A bouncy, politicised ode to the joys and woes of not being that bothered about stuff, this track will burn its way into your brain and have you sitting on the sofa, thrilled with indifference, or perhaps even dancing on a table, or in a crowded McDonalds, or on a cop’s face.

It’s up to you really!

Seeya back here on the 6th for more Burning Bright-based fun!

[BLM004] BURNING BRIGHT / CHERRY TREE

More from the vaults!

Our next two releases on Black Lantern Music were compilations, showcasing the different bands we were all in, and some of our contemporaries. There was the ‘Chemical Poets are Goin’ Back To Arkham’ mix, compiled by Sileni, and also a compilation made by Asthmatic Astronaut for Dejine.rec. Both of these are worth a click and download - they very much give the listener an idea of where we were coming from as a label in the early days.

Our next release proper was the EP ‘Cherry Tree’ by Burning Bright.Here’s what we said at the time:

Burning Bright is the collaboration between emcee Tickle and producer Salem Anders. With a jazzy, upbeat feel and socially conscious lyrics, this is an EP with a wide appeal for fans of intelligent hip-hop.

Aberdeen is a peon to a city still in love with music and partying, despite the weather (“Every gig that we jig at is a dig at the mean-ness / Of the weather in Aberdeen, yes…”);Despair Resistant Care Assistant is the only hip-hop tune ever released to deal with the subject of nursing homes, while Cherry Tree is an instrumental workout reminicscent of classic Ninja Tune beats. This is one you can play to everyone, even your Mum.

Salem Anders went on to produce Non-Sequitr for Texture’s second EP: and subsequently Texture and Tickle have started performing live hip-hop PAs together, with DJ Symatic. Salem Anders and Tickle have a new Burning Bright EP on the way, and Tickle has a solo EP coming with production from, among others, Asthmatic Astronaut. Until then, please enjoy their debut EP - perfect jazzy business for the spring weather!

[posted by T3XTUR3]