CAMERA OBSCURA: BIGGEST BLUEST HI-FI (2001)
1) Happy New Year; 2) Eighties
Fan; 3) Houseboat; 4) Shine Like A New Pin; 5) Pen And Notebook; 6) Swimming
Pool; 7) Anti-Western; 8) Let's Go Bowling; 9) I Don't Do Crowds; 10) The Sun
On His Back; 11) Double Feature; 12) Arrangements Of Shapes And Space.
Although Camera Obscura got their cozy little
break largely through the endorsement of Belle & Sebastian's Stuart
Murdoch, to whose music they have been compared ever since, the band itself
actually formed in the exact same year as Belle & Sebastian — they just had
to wait five years before being offered a record contract. Maybe the formation
was a direct consequence of the effect that Tigermilk had on fellow Glaswegians, or maybe it just so happened
that in 1996, Glasgow was hit by a melancholia-radiating beam from outer
space, but, whatever the circumstances, here we are with yet another sweet,
sad, and fragile indie pop outfit on our hands.
If anything, you could think of it as the
time-required female counterpart response to Belle & Sebastian. In the
place of Stuart Murdoch, we have Tracyanne Campbell, a slightly autistic / somnambulist
soul with a sweet, instantaneously likable voice, a hipster-approved penchant
for all things retro, and a deep love for cleanly produced guitar sounds
(everything from acoustic strum to electric jangle) and chamber music string
arrangements, which Murdoch is only too happy to help her arrange. She writes all
the songs, sings on most of them, and plays rhythm guitar, which more or less saves
us the trouble of memorizing the names of five other people in the band, but
for the sake of fairness, let us also mention second guitarist Kenny McKeeve,
whose plinking Fenders and minstrelish mandolins are just as responsible for
the overall effect.
First things first: there may actually be a substantial
reason why Camera Obscura had to search so long for a record contract — unlike
Murdoch, Campbell is not a naturally gifted songwriter. She is quite good at
expressing her feelings, but not at converting them into exceptional chord sequences
or vocal hooks. Three or four listens into the album, and I was still unable to
tell any of the songs apart, even if the actual melodies, tempos, and
arrangements do have slight differences. Everything seems centered around the
lyrics — the words seem well thought-out, whereas most of the melodies sound
like they were quickly tossed off on the spot (rather odd for a band who had
spent five years working out their schtick before finally crossing the studio
threshold).
Second, the atmosphere is certainly not unique.
The Belle & Sebastian comparison naturally comes to mind first, even
without knowing how tight the real connection is; but really, there are dozens
of twee-pop outfits out there that sound very close to Camera Obscura, and
unless you are able to figure out that particularly subtle special something
that makes the art of Tracyanne Campbell hit its very own nerve, this music
will never be worth a second replay to you. (As a ready-made example, the
arrival of Allo Darlin' in 2010, with its own retro-favoring, graciously fragile
leading lady Elizabeth Morris, put the reputational future of Camera Obscura
in dire straits — at least, I have stumbled upon a few comparisons that were
not particularly favorable towards the Glaswegian as pitted against the
Australian).
But unique or not unique, I find the atmosphere
all but impossible to dislike. Everything passes by like separate
similar-themed movements of a single soundtrack to a forty-five minute early
autumn walk through the park. Fresh breeze, chirping birdies, golden leaves, occasional
joggers, carps in the pond, headphones, the works. Not a single «rough» moment
on the album to pinch your emotions too hard, but that would only disrupt the pleasure
of walking. Even the drummer makes sure to use as many brushes and soft cymbal
tapping as possible so as not to make even the fastest songs on here «rock» in
any possible manner: Biggest Bluest
Hi-Fi is a gentle mood shot for all those who aren't too much in a hurry.
Campbell's style is certainly melancholic, but
still, much lighter than that of Murdoch — primarily because the music of
Camera Obscura is generally free of the bitterness and poorly concealed anger
at the world that permeates Murdoch's art. The lyrics, naturally, are mostly
about relationships, failed or holding, but they never get judgemental or
out-of-hand. The singing shows no range whatsoever (sometimes it feels as if
she's packing everything into one note,
let alone one octave), but whatever tone there is, it feels completely natural,
a special sort of «cool, but warm» intonation that suggests friendliness and loneliness at the same time. And
McKeeve's little lead melodies, ringing out in the background, suit that tone
perfectly.
Individual songs are not worth discussing; the
only thing I can say is that the music is very much improved when there is a
steady mid-tempo rhythm section pushing it forward (ʽShine Like A New Pinʼ,
ʽSwimming Poolʼ, ʽI Don't Do Crowdsʼ, etc.), and tends to get very boring on slow-moving acoustic
ballads like ʽLet's Go Bowlingʼ, no matter how many cool references to Clark
Gable she inserts in those lyrics (although, of course, if the song helped even
one fan to go see a Clark Gable movie, the album's rating has to be pushed up
for educational value). The final number is a waltzing instrumental that tries
to go out with a bang, adding an unexpected outburst of colorfully distorted «acid»
guitars — bit of a cherry on the tart for those who like their indie pop with a
psychedelic flavor, but, of course, much too late to drag the record out of its
«background muzak» state, and besides, who of us could be overwhelmed with a
simple spiralling psychedelic waltz in 2001, when it'd been thirty years ago
today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?
To conclude this with a brief title discussion,
the album is indeed hi-fi (fortunately for us all, Camera Obscura care about
sonic hygiene), but the «biggest» and «bluest» bits are self-aggrandizing hyperbolic
tricks — this music isn't particularly blue («autumn gold» is much more like
it), and it certainly isn't big. And these are the good points, because big and blue tend to sound fake these days,
whereas Camera Obscura sound sincere and likeable. I do not remember how even a
single song goes on the album, but I still give it a thumbs up for sheer therapy effect.
A pretty good record to play if you're in the mood of killing someone.
Check "Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi" (MP3) on Amazon
Wait a minute, that band name begins with... a C?!
ReplyDeleteFollowed by A
ReplyDeleteI did a spit-take!
ReplyDeleteSo you're skipping The Byrds?
ReplyDeleteDon't start.
DeleteThose Chuck Berry and Charley Patton reviews get closer with each day.
ReplyDeleteBring on The Cure!
ReplyDeleteGeorge reviews Beyonce and Britney and then he skips Built to Spill.
ReplyDeleteB is for Bummer.
Oh my God, we just went over this. When did Built to Spill release their first album? The early 90's. Which means that will be in Saturday's cycle, not Sundays when this review was posted. How many times does this have to be explained??
ReplyDeleteokay, that was funny. it's been over a year since i've read comments. thank you for the explanation. sorry to be a bother. i wasn't aware of a cycle.
ReplyDeleteLetter-antics aside, George, PLEASE review Blue Oyster Cult. I've been looking forward to you following up your review of their excellent first album for a long time. Pretty much everything they did in the 70s is worth hearing and hopefully you've found the same...
ReplyDeleteBlue Oyster Cult will most likely be reviewed on Thursdays (the 1971-1975 era, that is). So once George has reviewed Billy Joel, and then Black Sabbath and possibly a few other artists, I'm sure he will review them for you. :)
DeleteTo Paul McMillen: Sorry about that, that came across really harsh. I was having a bad day yesterday, and there was just a whole big thing on the Facebook group about people being confused about the whole alphabetical list thing, and I was very unnecessarily mean when I should have been helpful. I apologize. To understand more about the alphabetical cycle the blog follows, read the intro here: http://starling.rinet.ru/music/solitaire.htm
ReplyDeleteThe basic idea is that on Monday, he reviews an artist from the pre-60's era, Tuesday, early-mid 60's, Wednesday, late-60's/early 70's...etc. I hope that helps.
i checked out the page http://starling.rinet.ru/music/solitaire.htm. nice summaries of the artist that GS has already reviewed. i see now how he has divided up the time periods. thank you
ReplyDelete