Honey in the Sun – Camera Obscura
James – Camera Obscura
When I first heard “Let’s Get Out of This Country” by Camera Obscura a few years back it was a revelation, almost a religious experience. The joyfulness, the way that opening guitar riff signaled the rush of good feelings and hope at a new day, the bringing together of strings and backbeat into something that utterly exceeded that 60’s girl group sound that I love so well.
I bring this up to try and explain why, as good as My Maudlin Career undoubtedly is, to me it can only be a pale imitation of what came before. And the biggest problem is that it all just sounds so stuffy. Tracyanne Campbell has always had a bit of a nasally voice but up until now it was deployed in contexts that let it signify an earnestness and openness. This time around, the surrounding music treads dangerously close to creating a stifling atmosphere – one wholly at odds with the expressiveness and wide open spaces that made their best work so good.
In some ways, it’s characteristic of a broader trend in popular music over the decades, the closing down of open spaces, the effort to make every sound a little punchier.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a good Wall of Sound record. And I still adore a lot of those sixties songs that made their mark by smothering you with their melody. So I’m not against the idea in principle. It’s just that it’s so easy to go for Big or Full and end up with Claustrophobic instead. A good Wall of Sound isn’t really a wall at all; instead it’s about layers and layers. There are elements buried deep that prop up the whole sound but you likely won’t ever actually hear unless you’re paying close attention. The result is the simulation of one giant tidal wave of sound but it’s constructed out of many tiny moving pieces which each have their own place.
The more unfortunate variation of this approach just tosses everything into the front. The vocals feel like they’re right on top of you, the strings swaddle you, the guitars are struggling for space, and there’s just not an opportunity to hear what’s going on.
This is all going a little far afield of course. I’m not accusing Camera Obscura of representing anything close to the worst of this phenomenon. For all my modest complaints, My Maudlin Career remains a delightful record with more than a few great, great songs. But I do genuinely think that this problem helps explain why it utterly fails to grab me and hurl me toward the heavens the way it seems to desire.
Witness “French Navy” which has all the makings of a perfect blissout, but which just sounds so BUSY during that chorus that all of the delicate work done to put things together can’t quite sustain itself. Or “The Sweetest Thing” which ends up in much the same place. Both are very nice songs, but they remind me just a little bit of what happens when you try to intensify ALL your colors and realize that your ‘improvements’ have done little more than leave things with a hint of the garish. The title track is perhaps the most perfect example of this effect. I desperately WANT to like it, but there’s simply too much going on for me to grasp it.
In my mind, this is the real division of songs on the record. About half of them veer into this territory and lose some of the heft they might otherwise have held. A few others offer just a touch more restraint, and therefore pack a much bigger punch. “You Told a Lie,” for example, plays quite a bit more with the idea of open spaces in the music. The way the strings glide through the gaps in the percussion, to offer one example, is absolutely marvelous. Along these lines, “Swans” is another rousing success. It swoops and dives like it’s just learned how to fly. Same thing with the album closer “Honey in the Sun.” These demonstrate that Camera Obscura retain an impressive capacity to make music to make you revel in simply being alive.
As for the slower stuff, “Forest and Sands” is driven by a nice bit of pedal steel, that offers a subtlety of spirit Elsewhere, “James” gives Ms. Campbell a real chance to shine. Here the landscape is opened up. It’s the panoramic view: a girl alone on a wide plain, full of regrets, trying to hold together a broken heart.
In contrast, “Careless Love” strives for much the same thing, but the stuffiness of the sound makes it impossible to suspend disbelief and transport yourself into the world being described. Instead of the wide open plain, the terrain this time is a hot and airless recording studio. And “Other Towns and Cities” takes a nice enough song and then drapes so many echo effects over her voice that you almost feel the need to gasp for breath.
The final result is a patchy record. No bad songs, really, but a faint sense of disappointment hangs over the whole thing. Which is a shame because even with the flaws, it remains an excellent album. It’s just that with a slightly different studio attitude, it could have been an absolute triumph.