Camera Obscura - Are you ready to get your heart broken?

I used to have real trouble playing live; my nerves would just take over and I never saw the audience as …. I never understood what they were. It was like playing for some people you had to impress or something. Now I understand that’s not the case– they’re already your friend

(Tracyanne Campbell)

There was a time when any kind of rock'n'roll dissoluteness would have been almost unthinkable for Tracyanne Campbell; partly because of that insecurity typical of debutants, partly because of the excessive shyness that has always marked her way of relating to audiences, on stage and even off it: fearful of judgment and averse to being the centre of attention — not exactly what you'd expect from the leader of a band. The fact that, across an entire career, they've constantly been pointed at as some clumsy imitation, as the little siblings or, to borrow from Andersen's fairy tale, as the "Ugly Duckling", sidelined, mocked and snubbed, inevitably ending up hiding (albeit cosily) in the heavy shadow of Stuart Murdoch (the two would even have a brief relationship), has certainly not helped matters. So there are various reasons, beyond their rather naive and retro approach to music, that conspired to have Camera Obscura often dismissed as a B-list Belle & Sebastian. That period, thankfully, is now long behind them, because the Glasgow band rolled up their sleeves and, over a fifteen-year journey, managed to find their own way, without letting yesterday's shadows blot out the colours of a new day, finally turning for good from "ugly duckling" into a proper swan.

Posters and record shops

It's 1993 when Tracyanne Campbell and John Henderson, at the time students in the same "Sound and Video Recording" class at college, decide to form a band together, the way thousands of bands are born: partly out of passion, partly for fun, partly out of that subtle urge to stand out among the many.

The band, however, only officially takes shape in 1996, when Tracy and John, looking for a bassist, happen to walk into Gavin Dunbar's record shop to put up a flyer. It wasn't really a shop, to tell the truth — it was a small room with a few (very few) shelves holding Dunbar's (meagre) collection. Gavin would sit in this shop every day for hours on end, listening to records, sipping tea and reading old copies of Melody Maker. Every now and then friends would drop in for a chat and a bite to eat: it felt more like a bedroom where, instead of a bed, there was a cash register. And yet, every so often, some stranger would walk in...

It's Tracy and John. The poster is an ad looking for members for the band, after they'd decided that the two of them would write and sing all the songs. Gavin's heart skips a beat. He'd been playing bass since he was a kid, in a fairly makeshift way, in the roughest pubs of suburban Glasgow. So he doesn't hesitate to get in touch with them. That's how Camera Obscura is born, between rehearsals in Gavin's father's shed and the odd bit of strumming here and there. Tracyanne on guitar, Gavin on bass and John... John singing... whenever needed (he'd later learn to play guitar too), with Gavin's mother giving singing lessons. After a rotation of a couple of guitarists, David Skirving, author of the first songs, also joins on a permanent basis.

The first two singles to be recorded are "Park and Ride" in May 1988 and "Your Sound" at the end of the year, both released on Lindsay Boyd's fledgling Andmoresound Records (Boyd would later join the band too) and both featuring Richard Colburn of Belle & Sebastian on drums. The various nods to all that delicate, kilt-wearing indie-pop of bands like Pastels and B&S are therefore plain to see. Soft harmonies over a male/female duet and an acoustic guitar: Camera Obscura, taking their name from an old prototype of Victorian photography, fill their songs with warmth and intimacy, revealing themselves as songwriters of the school of purity. A first EP, "Rare UK Bird", containing the singles, the B-sides plus a few new songs, is released the following year on the Japanese label Quattro, while guitarist David Skirving officially leaves Camera Obscura to start a new project, California Snow Story; he's replaced by Kenny McKeeve, while Lee Thomson takes over on drums, both still current members.

Shining like a new pin

On 25 June 2001 the third single, "Eighties Fan" (produced by none other than Stuart Murdoch), is released, paving the way for the debut on Andmoresound Records of "Biggest Blues Hi-Fi", the Scots' first album, which best captures the group's sonic coordinates: a delightful female voice, close to the early recordings of Tracey Thorn (Everything But The Girl) or Harriet Wheeler (The Sundays), but seasoned with a small dose of the strong personality of a Dusty Springfield or a Nancy Sinatra. Acoustic guitars, a barely sketched rhythm and a simply unforgettable melody mark out the signature track of their debut album, and would cement "Eighties Fan" as one of the best-known and most evocative songs in their catalogue. An incredibly bittersweet, beautifully recorded string section pervades the soul, later echoed by bands like Tompaulin (also Scottish), and could mean something to anyone, such is the grace and deftness with which it moves: "...you say your life will be the death of you...". Unfortunately, the song's placement as the album's second track slightly penalises everything that follows. That's not to discredit the album or the rest of the songs, but comparison with that single is often an uneven fight. The subsequent songs are good nonetheless, good enough to suggest that "Eighties Fan" wasn't just a stroke of luck, but that there's an extreme consistency that catapults Camera Obscura straight into indie-pop glory from the outset. Worth noting are the dreadful tale of the boy obsessed with the Smiths in "Pen and Notebook" ("...And you knew you'd made a mistake when you first saw Marr..."), with flashes of strings that create a peculiar sense of closeness between musician and listener; the tangled relationship in the vocal duets of "Houseboat", with its jingle-jangle chiming; or the disillusioned "Let's Go Bowling" ("...I don't believe in anything so you may as well forget about me..."), with a completely bared Tracyanne unspooling her emotions; the optimistic "Shine Like a New Pin" ("...Girl with a thick skin made you shine like a new pin..."); and the almost lo-fi "The Sun on His Back" ("...Do you feel lucky tonight (go out it's alright)..."), with drumming straight out of the Beat Happening playbook.

Tracyanne Campbell's lyrical focus here is trained squarely on love and its complicated consequences. But the real struggle in her songs isn't simply fixated on the relationship with another person — it's a constant tug-of-war between emotional vulnerability and the stubborn will to maintain a secure sense of romantic independence. With this songwriting strength, and with its modern twist on the Sixties arrangements of Bacharach, Webb and Hazlewood, "Biggest Blues Hi-Fi" sounds grand without being bombastic, simple without being trite, universal without being needlessly rhetorical as a result.

First challenges in pop's premier league

On the back of the single "Eighties Fan," which reached number 8 in John Peel's Festive Fifty, a special relationship of mutual admiration also begins with the legendary English DJ, who takes them under his wing and invites them on 14 August (and again on 20 December) to record the first of what would become 5 radio sessions (again in 2002, 2003 and 2004) for Radio 1. They play 4 songs, "Anti Western," "Sun on His Back" and two new tracks that would later surface on the new record, "Number One Son" and "Before You Cry," and are then invited by Peel himself to his Christmas party, the "Christmas Carol Special," alongside Melys, Lianne Hall and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. This crush of Peel's is one of the great strokes of luck for the Scots, as it allows them to widen their listener base, reaching audiences they'd never even imagined before (they also enjoyed strong success in Spain, where they released both the reissue of their debut and the new album in 2003 on Elefant Records). The line-up changes again at the end of the year into what would become the (near) definitive one: Nigel Baillie on brass and Carey Lander taking Lindsay Boyd's place on keyboards.

And with that looming desire of someone who knows they deserve a brighter destiny, who is trying to break free of those endless 'accusations,' and who hopes to escape the boundaries that are probably growing ever tighter, Camera Obscura — with a Tracyanne now increasingly sure of herself — release their sophomore effort "Underachiever Please Try Harder," proof that the transformation into a swan is drawing ever closer.

An honest approach, now increasingly adult in its romantic entanglements, with a maturity shown first and foremost on the tracks sung by John Henderson. "Before You Cry" is a graceful nod to Nashville, "Your Picture" winks at Leonard Cohen, while the Motown stomp of "Take Me Home" towers over the whole chapter. "Underachiever Please Try Harder" plays with the intellectual pleasure of referencing and looks around with the naive eyes of a young Holden, in an amalgam of nods to a sweetly retro folk-pop that is nonetheless full of vitality. There are no virtuoso flourishes or revolutions among the grooves of this record, but it's the direct simplicity of its melodic ideas that wins you over immediately. Both in the biographical glimpses of the single "Teenager" ("…Well, you’re not a teenager so don’t act like one…") and in the chaotic feelings towards one's own teacher in "Suspended From Class" ("…Now he wants to kiss, He says he can’t resist, You’re going to have to keep it hidden inside, I have feeling that pigs might fly, might fly…"), with the horns of Love providing the backdrop. And in this faint boundary between repressed feelings and desires for redemption lies the whole horizon of Camera Obscura's melancholy pop.

What really wins you over, though, is the softly sixties cadence of "Keep it Clean," less romantic but equally vulnerable in its emotional regrets ("…I wish you could have said something before now…") and firmly determined not to fall for it again ("…I don’t want to be part of your scene, I’ll stick with him and keep my nose clean…"), with Tracyanne's dark voice able to captivate even a casual listener. "Underachiever Please Try Harder" is made of an innocence that isn't afraid of being out of fashion, and it still holds up today, because the record's longevity comes from the songs themselves. Perhaps it lacked a certain capacity for poetic sublimation. Where Morrissey transfigured Keats, Yeats and Wilde, adapting them (and how skilfully) to the needs of his own petty daily dissatisfactions, Tracyanne and John respond with songs of the conceptual scope of "Knee Deep in the National Pop League" or "Lunar Sea" ("…At the rainbows end, Find a perfect friend say you’re sorry, Make me dream at night, Break my heart on sight don’t you worry…"), which it's impossible not to blush a little singing along to. And this despite the fact that Camera Obscura were given the chance to set to music, alongside other artists of the calibre of Delgados, Belle & Sebastian, Shinmeat etc., during their 2004 Peel Sessions, two poems by Robert Burns (1759-1796), considered one of Scotland's national poets: "Love My Jean" and "Red Red Rose." These two live tracks (recorded three months before the radio host's death), which also marked the last concert of the departing John Henderson (the reasons why he decided to leave Camera Obscura to pursue his own projects were never entirely clear), were released on the 2004 single "I Love My Jean" as a tribute to John Peel, rounding out the tracklist with a jangly, melancholy-steeped "Marathon Not A Sprint" ("…Honey you were good for me, But I can’t deny my need to be free grows…").

This is how the old comparisons that have so often followed Camera Obscura throughout their musical journey are gradually and effortlessly dismantled. If before Tracyanne Campbell could sound like a more charismatic Isobel Campbell (there is no family relation between the two), she has now taken on the more dominant role that in B&S belongs to Stuart Murdoch, with John Henderson relegated to taking on the role of the similarly departed Isobel. This reversal makes the two bands look more like the natural mirror image of one another, and it's easy to imagine Tracyanne Campbell and Stuart Murdoch as each other's silent interlocutor in dialogue.

Ready to have your heart broken?

After the departure of singer and percussionist John Henderson, Tracyanne Campbell firmly takes the helm of the band, writing and singing every track on the new album "Let's Get Out of This Country," released in 2006 on Elefant Records, giving the listener, for once, a distinctly female point of view in a world — indie-pop — too often dominated by an exclusively male perspective.

Working with a producer for the first time (Jari Haapalainen, already behind the desk for Club 8 and Concretes) and with access to a professional studio, Camera Obscura claim a more personal sound, poised between classic sixties-rooted pop and alt-country, marked by a rich, intense orchestration — thanks also to the contribution of organ and strings — that nonetheless manages, across the ten tracks that make up the record, to avoid both the risk of excessive tightness and polish and the ever-present danger of overproduction.

The confidence and self-awareness of the band and its leader are evident right from the opening track, "Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken," where, explicitly answering the question posed over twenty years earlier by Lloyd Cole, Tracyanne confirms that she has by now grown up and is ready to face life and its hardships ("I've got my life of complication here to sort out, I'll take myself to an east coast city and walk about"). Indeed, the maturation of Camera Obscura, both musically and lyrically, is evident throughout the album: in the more upbeat, sunnier tracks like the title track, as well as in the more meditative, delicate ones, in which, either way, the Scots prove they can handle the difficult art of arrangement with care. Such is the case with the splendid "Dory Previn," with its country touches, or the sorrowful, melancholy ballad "Country Mile": and while in the former the lyrics are harsh, almost at odds with the sweetness of the melody and vocals, in the latter, alongside the awareness of life's hardships ("…I don't believe in true love anyway, who's being pessimistic now?…"), there's an almost childlike hope that the future might hold improvements and surprises ("…once again I'll be the foolish one, thinking a blink of these lashes would make you come…"). Elsewhere ("Come Back Margaret," "I Need All The Friends I Can Get"), the pace picks up and the slightly retro melody evokes Fifties atmospheres.

If further proof were needed, Camera Obscura provide the definitive demonstration of their newfound stylistic and formal maturity in the track that closes the record, "Razzle Dazzle Rose," a lovely orchestral mid-tempo number, accompanied by a melancholy trumpet, in which Tracyanne Campbell shows once again that her approach to life will from now on be more pragmatic than before ("…expecting softness can lead to foolishness…"), but never cynical. Sadness is always accompanied by hope.

The album's greatest strength, in any case, lies in its extraordinary cohesion. Far from being merely a string of singles, "Let's Get Out Of This Country" has an intrinsic thematic and musical coherence that allows us to state, once and for all and with complete confidence, that Camera Obscura sound like nothing but themselves.

Swans at last

The previous album, "Let's Get Out Of This Country," had spiced up the warm summer of 2006 with its colourful collection of untouchable little pop songs, closing the circle of stylistic completeness the band had been tracing since their very first record, released in 2001. The three years separating "My Maudlin Career" from its predecessor were spent touring the globe, putting on explosive and thoroughly enjoyable shows (the July 2008 performance in Bologna is a prime example; on that occasion the execution was precise and faithful to the originals, with reworkings involving length and vocal delivery).

Leaving the formula of breezy country-pop intact, the band pours all its potential into the new eleven songs with commendable dedication. Irrepressible melodies spun with an innate sense of rhythm, enriched by the deep voice of Tracyanne Campbell, by now the band's established leader and a guitarist of remarkable versatility. Showing no apparent sign of an identity or inspiration crisis, the usual show gets underway without hesitation.

Classic arrangements dress up a well-tested structure with their magnificence (the immaculate beauty of the opener "French Navy," the irresistible whirl of "The Sweetest Thing"), while dusty guitars and lyrics worth reading on the page are the hallmarks of the sparer tracks (the romantic ache of "Away With Murder," a caressed snare drum that stirs the soul in "James").

The heterogeneity allows for very decisive shifts in tone, which helps keep the flow of songs from feeling too flat. This choice makes it easier to appreciate both the properly pop moments and the more measured ones. Picking almost at random, we find secluded gems with a melancholic flavour (the dragging gait of "You Told A Lie", the grandiloquent sunniness of "Careless Love") alongside singles with a strong radio-friendly imprint (the over-the-top tones of "Swans", and the title track, phlegmatic and charged with tension).

After a duet built on pure essentials (just guitar and voice on "Other Towns And Cities", the tale of a seaside road movie in "Forests And Sands"), the album closes with a horn fanfare in full big-band style, a moment that seals the ending with great pathos ("Honey In The Sun").

"My Maudlin Career" puts forward a pop genuineness beyond reproach: every piece is in its right place, and the touch of variety gives the record an irresistible appeal. 

Want to know what William's heart is like?

"Desire Lines", the fifth album by Scotland's Camera Obscura, arrives after a four-year hiatus marked by illness, upheaval and... life. In 2011 Carey Lander was diagnosed with cancer (she has since responded well to treatment) and had to stop playing, while Kenny McKeeve became a father in 2012 despite losing his mother at the start of that same year. Many were the events that brought Camera Obscura to a crossroads: break up to deal with these pressing matters, or get back on their feet with a new record. The choice to leave their comfort zone behind, just as they did in 2006 by heading to Sweden, and go record a new chapter in Portland under the supervision of Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, Spoon) is a sign that underlines not only the stubbornness and resilience of their ideas, but also their will to work on something that wouldn't betray their past, but rather pay tribute to it. One might think the ordeal of these events would have 'infected' a good part of the record, but the opposite seems to have happened. "Desire Lines" is a distillation of life and hope. A record that is no longer just the sweet diary of a broken-hearted teenager, but within its own personal boundaries is now also a detailed snapshot that captures the entire journey of a band with more than a decade behind it.

The difference in production is clear when compared to their older work: a more atmospheric style, cleaner hooks (Tracyanne's voice, too, seems to have improved with time), a more vintage use of synthesizers, and an overall sound better focused on letting each instrument be identified within the songs, without the wall-of-pop found on "My Maudlin Career". Still, it remains a lush chamber pop, even if the disillusioned tones of "Keep It Clean" and the stylistic unevenness of a debutante like "Biggest Blues Hi-Fi" are nowhere close. Tracyanne has never sounded so confident in her singing, nor have her lyrics ever been so explicit. Even on the bubble-song "Do It Again", the lead single, she gets downright erotic (she was five months pregnant at the time, ed.), leaving little to the imagination in the chorus "…You were insatiable, I was more than capable, Turn down the lights now, let’s do it again…".  The upbeat melody of "Troublemaker" flirts with synth-pop shades, its synthesizer lines weaving through soaring patterns never so exposed, caught between the sweet fusion of Campbell's hiccupping harmonies and the typically Bacharach-esque atmospheres of their earlier records.

Once again our muse creates fictional characters and figures, and it's never entirely clear how much of herself she pours into her lyrics. In the lush melancholy of "William's Heart", which could evoke the airy heartache of The Go-Betweens (or, staying within their own catalogue, the sorrow held inside an imaginative piece like "Lunar Sea"), there's a narrator telling of a man who would have liked to have a heart of gold, but who should have come from a better 'mould'. Is it Tracyanne Campbell acting as an outside observer, then, or the man "made of wool" she sings about? We're not meant to know. It's the sweetness of her voice, though, that makes all her lyrics feel more than sincere - lyrics that may well turn out to be deceptive the deeper you dig into them. And it's here that one can also pick up on the veiled dose of irony surrounding the world of Camera Obscura.

There's no shortage of heavy hitters, like the explosive hit "Break It To You Gently" (easily an outtake from "My Maudlin Career"), the semi-bossa wrapped around the statement of "Every Weekday" ("…I don’t want to sound like I’ve written us off, The words and the feelings are pouring and I can’t turn them off…"), and the sheer freshness of "I Missed Your Party", on which Campbell literally lists all the things she plans to do instead of going to a friend's party ("…I listen to Billy Joel, I watch Flashdance again, I’m going to get through Walt Whitman, I’m going to be in bed by ten…"). In upbeat pop mode the quintet is impressive, but it's when they slow things down into downtempo ballads that they truly take your breath away. Take the Americana-tinged closing title track, with Tracy never so skilled at conveying the sadness, tension and heartache that runs through the whole record. The delicate "Fifth in Line to the Throne" (with Neko Case lending her voice here) and, again, "New Year's Resolution" are a collection of tender, pastel-coloured acoustic watercolours that breathe new life into a flowery kind of songwriting, suspended respectively between enchantment ("…You treat me like a queen but like a queen I don’t know if I’ll be slain…") and hopes for tomorrow ("…New year’s resolution- to write something of value, New years resolution- to kiss you like I mean it…").

And so the lines quoted by Tracyanne Campbell at the start sum up, as becomes clear by the end, not just the practical universe behind the new record, but the entire career of a band that has long since managed to wriggle free of the stifling ties that bound it to the puddles of Glasgow, and that now, more than ever, sees itself reflected in the clearest of waters, in all its beauty.

The Long Goodbye and the Return

After the release of Desire Lines, the band found itself facing a string of hardships that led them to stop touring and working on new material. The biggest issue was the illness Carey Lander had to confront, which sadly led to her passing in 2015. For roughly a decade the band had no public activity, save for a brief stage appearance at the Boaty Weekender festival, at the invitation of Belle & Sebastian, followed by yet another period of hiatus. With Donna Maciocia joining on keyboards, talk of a new record began to grow more insistent.

Their sixth album, Look To The East, Look To The West (2024) is a delightful comeback that showcases Camera Obscura's ability to evolve while staying true to their roots. The opening track, "Liberty", is a great example of this balance. It's a bittersweet journey through subtle melodic touches and melancholic lyrics, recalling the emotional depth of Florist. The delicate guitar riffs and soft percussion create an intimate atmosphere, perfectly rounded out by Tracyanne Campbell's hushed voice.

The title track takes a surprising turn with its country influences, featuring a lively pedal steel that also shows up on the more playful "Pop Goes Pop". "We're Going To Make It In A Man's World" stands out as a jubilant anthem of female empowerment. The track is vibrant, packed with atmospheric synths that create a catchy, infectious rhythm. The electronics provide a lush backdrop, while the cheerful hooks and joyful melody make it an irresistible listen. "Big Love" carries on this trend but with a retro charm and a solid folk-country foundation. On "Only A Dream" the tone seems to darken, but the arrangements and a superb piano, backed by atmospheric drums, remind us that you shouldn't keep your feet too firmly on the ground when listening to Camera Obscura's dreamy pop.

The ballads ("Sleepwalking" and "Sugar Almond") tend toward melancholy. "Sugar Almond" is dedicated in particular to their late friend Carey, and listening to it, it becomes almost impossible not to be swept up by a wave of emotion. These are, however, isolated moments within a record strongly geared toward optimism. Proof of that comes in the cheeky electro-pop of "Baby Huey (Hard Times)" and the vintage charm of "Denon", on which Campbell's vocal delivery recalls Petula Clark a little. An original arrangement and glockenspiel flourishes make the song one of the finest on an album that, for indie pop fans, could easily become one of the favourite records of the year.

Contributions by Francesco Amoroso ("Let's Get Out of This Country"), Alessandro Biancalana ("My Maudlin Career") and Fabio Ferrara ("Look To The East, Look To The West").

A special thanks to Francesco Amoroso for editing.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google