The National Parks

Lantern By Sea

Lantern By Sea is an indie rock band based out of Provo, UT, founded by brothers Porter & Tate Smithand Josh Alvey. Influenced by great cinematic stories, their music aims to take you on a journey. Mixingtogether a blend of heartening and melancholy riffs with a concoction of orchestral-inspired percussionand anthemic vocals and melodies, Lantern By Sea aims to bring grand odysseys to the rock stage.

Andrea Von Kampen

Andrea von Kampen’s That Spell is an emotionally evocative powerhouse. It’s cinematic and
sweeping- with literary references, reflections on nature and above all the ability to transport you to a
memory, a place in time or somewhere you saw in a dream with vivid lucidity. Like a film director, she
works as an aural auteur building scenes with her rapturous voice and the plaintive plucks of her guitar
strings. With these ten songs, the Nebraska-raised singer-songwriter immediately establishes herself as
a formidable talent with her deeply felt folk-indebted sound and inquisitive, empathetic lyrics. Andrea
excels at connecting the dots between personal experience and the world at large, and it’s what makes
That Spell such an instantly memorable breakthrough to experiencing her artistic state of mind and the
worlds she builds in her music.
The fact that That Spell achieves such cohesion and confidence is no accident. It’s the culmination of a
life immersed in music. The youngest of four children, Andrea, and her siblings all learned
instruments—a byproduct of their musician mother and choir director father. Their parents fostered a
love of music, but it was also the family business – and the generational passing down of the skills they’d
honed to their children was a given and a blessing. Andrea’s instrument of choice was the guitar and she
picked it up at a young age.
“Music was just what we did,” she remembers, as she absorbed the work of vocal jazz icons like Etta
James and Ella Fitzgerald as well as folk-pop legends Paul Simon and James Taylor—both of whom, like
Andrea, are also part of the Fantasy Records family. Andrea wrote her first song, the inquisitive and
quietly glowing “Trainsong,” in college—which set off a creative spark that’s fueled her since. “Ever since
then I’ve looked daily for that hour to read, write, listen, and be intentional with keeping my creative
muscle working,” she explains.
In 2015, Andrea released her debut EP Another Day, and the following year she submitted a performance
of “Let Me Down Easy” to NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest that was shared by All Things Considered. After a
steady stream of EPs that included 2016’s potent Desdemona, her debut album Old Country followed in
2019; since then, Andrea’s also starred in and composed the soundtrack for the forthcoming film Molto
Bella and has accrued hundreds of thousands of regular Spotify listeners worldwide.
That Spell was begun shortly after the release of Old Country and worked on throughout the COVID-19
pandemic. After building the melodies and writing the lyrics, she turned to her lifelong collaborator—her
brother David, who composed string arrangements and worked with Andrea to build out the
instrumentation that would ultimately fulfill her vision.
An album that radiates quiet luminescence while possessing undeniable power, That Spell concerns
itself with themes in a way best described by Andrea as “A response to what was going on politically, as
well as reflecting on my childhood.” Indeed, That Spell features Andrea’s ruminations on ecology,
classism, and adolescence, as she wields an empathetic lens through which she transmutes these ten
melodic reveries.
First single “Water Flowing Downward” is teeming with gorgeous keyboards and Andrea’s floating yearn
of a voice: “I was humming this old tune and I just penned lyrics to it, which I never do,” Andrea recalls

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how the contemplative song came about. The song’s lyrical content was inspired by the Oscar-winning
film Parasite—specifically, the way the film uses water as a metaphor.
“It was a useful tool for the wealthy, and something that could destroy people who aren’t wealthy,” she
explains. “I was inspired by the way that spoke to class discrepancies.” The deceptively airy-sounding
title track was similarly inspired by Andrea’s recent readings on gender equality issues in society. “It was
my response to all of the times as a female that I’ve been at the whim of people with more power than
me,” she states. “I’m so done with that, and I’m not just going to pander to everyone just because
society tells me to.”
The quietly radiant “Take Back Thy Gift” was inspired by the poetry of Lord Alfred Tennyson, as well as
the Greek story of Tithonius that Tennyson once wrote about himself. “It felt like an ancient cautionary
tale that I wanted to breathe new life to,” she explains. Later on the album, Andrea offers a lush and
gorgeously dreamy cover of the Beach Boys’ classic Pet Sounds cut “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My
Shoulder),” adding her own texture and personality to the unforgettable tune.
The honeyed melody and lush instrumentation of “Carolina,” meanwhile finds Andrea drawing from
James Taylor’s musical influence on her childhood, as well as realizing the power of music at large:
“When I was growing up, whenever that song would come on the radio, my whole family would
reverently pause for it. That was a taste of realizing that sometimes songs mean more than just what it
seems on the surface.” What she took away from that experience not only informed “Carolina” but the
artistic ethos that courses through That Spell as a whole: “I realized that songs have power and that I
wanted to have that effect on people, too.”