I’ve always found it hard to describe succinctly the kind of music I
like when people ask me (not that many people ask me anything anymore).
But I thought about Camera Obscura yesterday, for
the first time in ages, and I really think, if I wanted someone to have a
pretty good idea of what my musical sweet spot is, it’s that.
Not that Camera Obscura are, per se, one of my all-time
favourite bands, or that I listen to them all the time. That’s the funny thing.
But, in terms of a band through which I can explain what I’m after in music, they
tick most of the boxes.
Especially their fourth album ‘My Maudlin Career’,
the one after the one that contains perhaps their closest encounter with the
mainstream. The extremely perfect single ‘Hey Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken’.
‘My Maudlin Career’ contains more of the same, but more so.
Some “indie” music doesn’t really sound like it’s
interested in success or mass connection (and that can certainly be fabulous) but
to me, there’s a parallel universe where ‘My Maudlin Career’, with the clear
and perfect singing of Tracyanne Campbell, its plentiful string and brass
arrangements, its clean production and heady choruses, is a massive hit loved
by the kids and the mums and dads and grannies up and down the land.
It’s music made with care and love and with a
sense of scale. The lyrics also bite, that’s one of the things that’s so
marvellous about it. Not in an incongruous, sneaky way. I can actually find it
a bit disconcerting where really dark lyrics are sneaked into a big tune by a
pretty voice, but here, the voice, and the arrangement is just so capable of
conveying love and longing, sarcasm and irritation, all at the same time.
It is both music made (probably, relatively)
cheaply which sounds expensive, and music with great direct impact which is
also very subtle.
Lines like “so you want to be a writer … a fantastic
idea” on ‘Swans’, and ‘When you’re lucid you’re the sweetest thing” on ‘Sweetest
Thing’ have so much nuance and backstory to them.
So, yeah, Camera Obscura, part of that world of
lovely, not particularly successful, indie music made by grown-ups which is never
quite in fashion but is always good, that, broadly speaking is what, year on
year, decade on decade, you’ll find me liking.
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