The Stool Pigeon

Labels. There’s a weird mix of caustic self-deprecation and wounded pride among the six members of Glasgow’s Camera Obscura, and one begins to suppose much of it has to do with labels. Like the one imposed by the British press around the time of 2006’s breakthrough LP Let’s Get Out Of This Country, about the band staking its claim as the new Belle & Sebastian.

Singer Tracyanne Campbell plunges an imaginary knife into her eye. “That’s so... dull,” she complains, scarcely mustering the contempt required to finish her sentence.
Keyboardist Carey Lander takes up the baton: “We were being made to feel grateful for a magazine reviewing an album even though the reviews were generally a pile of pish.”

Such aggressive self-pity looks unbecoming on paper, but perhaps Camera Obscura can feel justifiably aggrieved. Forming as a quartet in 1996, the band has ploughed an increasingly distinguished furrow in ravishing, Motown-inspired pop from shaky, Pastels-shaded origins. But they remained a largely overlooked proposition in spite of early acclaim from John Peel and had yet to ink a deal with a UK imprint until 4AD agreed to release new album My Maudlin Career, a record originally earmarked for self-release. All of which is where the other label gripe comes in...

“We financed the record ourselves because we were out of contract and felt like taking control of what we do more,” says Campbell. “It was about having the confidence to secure ourselves the best future possible - we knew we could make a good record so we thought we’d let people hear it. When 4AD approached us I felt vindicated. We’d been on a Spanish label and I think everybody was a wee bit mystified as to why we’d never been on a British one. It was like, ‘What’s their fucking problem?’”

And what of the press’s reticence? Is there only so much room for literate, Scottish indie within the London-based media’s ignoramus ranks?

“I think it’s more that we’re too fat and ugly for them,” says Lander with a conspiratorial grin. “We’re five paranoid, fat, ugly munters. That’s the headline there!”

Fearing my embarrassed silence will be taken for tacit agreement, we move on to the good news. Namely, that while Let’s Get Out Of This Country did much to establish the band’s credentials as an accomplished entity in its own right, the new one should melt hearts even further. From jaunty opener ‘French Navy’ on, it’s the sound of a band increasingly comfortable in its own skin, mixing all the usual elements of orchestral pop, soul and country into a seamless, perfectly nuanced blend. And with Campbell’s sweetly unaffected vocals centre-stage, it is at times an astonishingly professional-sounding record, albeit one with a lovelorn personality all its own.

Campbell explains: “If we’re ever shambolic then we certainly don’t mean to be. I hate this thing some bands have of, ‘Oh, they made a mistake, that’s so cute.’ We don’t want to make mistakes. We practise hard and if we’re not perfect it bothers us, and it bloody well should.”

The band seem pleased that the new album was recorded largely in live takes, expressing admiration for the Motown work ethic in its ability to crank out the hits.
“They were incredibly brave records,” says Campbell. “They went in and recorded live and ended up with these perfect pop songs. A session would get booked and whatever came out of it, that’s the record.”

“And that’s how we do it,” she adds, with the quiet sort of pride that suggests there’s plenty in a label for this most talented of bands.

Popularity: 1% [?]