I'm In Love With Tracyanne Campbell

Wednesday, May 13 2009

"When you're lucid you're the sweetest thing. I would trade my mother to hear you sing."
-Camera Obscura, "The Sweetest Thing"

... With regard to Tracyanne Campbell, I'm unequivocally sold on the former statement of the two. The trading my mother part? Probably not... But I'd do damn near anything else.

Tracyanne Campbell is the singer and lead songwriter of what could very well be my favorite band (of, say, 2 or more people) currently making music... Camera Obscura. I'll be the first to admit I was a little late to the Camera Obscura party when I discovered them in 2006. However, I'm doing everything in my power to make up for lost time.

2006's 'Let's Get Out Of This Country' is one of my favorite albums of the last five or so years. I've listened to it some insane number of times. I loved every track on that record and in my humble opinion, for whatever it's worth, "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" is one of the greatest songs recorded in this decade hands down. Needless to say, I was more than a little bit excited when word began to spread over the course of the past year that not only was the band working on material for a new record but that they were also tapped by 4AD (on the shortlist of my very favorite record labels in the world) for it's release.

So, when the LP became available in the shops last week, I naturally went and picked it up as quickly as I could. For the ridiculously low price of $13.99 it comes in a beautiful gatefold jacket with an impeccable matte finish and a full-color sleeve insert to boot. There's also a lyric sheet within the gatefold... What more could one ask for?

How about a good record? Well, you get that too. This record has some SERIOUSLY fantastic moments, on par if not better than anything they've done to date. I'm not yet ready to call the entire record better than their last from start to finish but my relationship with it is a new one so you'll have to get back to me on that a few years from now. I am undoubtedly ready to say though that when this record shines, it's fucking spectacular.

The band has gotten closer to perfecting their own brand of 60's-inspired pop over the years and it becomes a more lush and refined thing of beauty with each successive release. Their new album sounds bigger, more expensive and better engineered than anything they've made to date. The arrangements are pristine, the reverbs warm and organic, the strings more intense than ever... It's a near-perfect contemporary re-appropriation of vintage recordings that sounds simultaneously old and new in the best way possible.

Additionally, the presence of Tracyanne Campbell, the lead lady in charge, has grown immensely on record and it seems from this devoted listener's perspective that she might feel more comfortable in her own artistic skin than ever before. There's a sort of confidence evident in her voice that has brought a new dimension to the band's recordings and I for one, am totally crazy about it... Like, listening to it every day for the past three weeks crazy about it. Her songs have always seemed personal and at times confessional but with the added depth of the new-found drama in her vocal performances, the effect is kind of like the musical equivalent of an up-and-coming, underground actor finally making strides towards wider-recognition. For hers and the band's sake, I hope that is the case (if indeed that is something they're trying to achieve... And I get the feeling it is) because they bloody well deserve it.

Tracyanne Campbell's performances can be alternately heartbreaking, funny, literary, sweet and dozens of other things at once. The fact that she's pushing her voice to greater extremes than ever before has also gone a long way in tearing away the facade of her previously unexposed, cuter-than-cute (cute being a word often associated with this band) Glasweigan accent. She sounds fully-committed and having heard what she has to say on the album's title track, I think the future is bright for the careers of both her and her bandmates... "This maudlin career has come to an end, I don't want to be sad again", she says. Here's to hoping she gets her wish.

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The band will be making an appearance in Chicago at Metro on Friday May 29th. You'll find me somewhere in the building, awed no doubt by my favorite lady in the business.

Tags: Assorted Musical Musings, Camera Obscura

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