Only Solitaire: G. Starostin's Record Reviews, Reloaded c intro Notes
LET'S GET OUT OF THIS COUNTRY (2006)
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- Dear Catastrophe Waitress
- Lets Get Out Of This Country
- MY MAUDLIN CAREER (2009)
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- HYDROPONIC GARDEN (2003)
LET'S GET OUT OF THIS COUNTRY (2006) 1) Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken; 2) Tears For Affairs; 3) Come Back Margaret; 4) Dory Previn; 5) The False Contender; 6) Let's Get Out Of This Country; 7) Country Mile; 8) If Looks Could Kill; 9) I Need All The Friends I Can Get; 10) Razzle Dazzle Rose. As their mentors and chief competitors opted for revving up their sound a bit, and substituting the slow «chamber folk» stuff of their early records for the upbeat electric pop melancholia of Dear Catastrophe Waitress (released just one month after Camera Obscura's Underachievers) and particularly The Life Pursuit, Tracyanne and Co. had little choice but to follow — difficult to do otherwise if you spend your time in a constant mind-meld with Stuart Murdoch. And for one song out of ten at least, this predictable turnaround worked its wonder: ʽLloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbrokenʼ, maybe accidentally, maybe not, happens to be one of the most lovingly written, arranged, and recorded pop songs of the decade. In order to get its title, you must either be an educated connoisseur or somebody who kept a sharp ear out for new sounds in the mid-Eighties, since it «echoes» back Lloyd Cole's largely forgotten ʽAre You Ready To Be Heartbroken?ʼ from 1984 — but in reality, the song works fine on its own, since, fortunately for us all, Tracyanne's lyrical twists, no matter how obscure their points of reference, never sound like the primary attraction for her songs. In fact, her charming voice acts as a perfect neutralizer for any «snob acid burns» that the words might inflict upon a poor, innocent brain, not yet well versed in the ocean of cultural trivia... ...where were we, anyway? Oh yes, ʽI'm Ready To Be Heartbrokenʼ is a song that is simple, up to the point, repetitive, catchy, and, despite being formally dedicated to issues of jealousy and disappointment, radiates positive energy with all its might. Yes, even here, Camera Obscura's serious artistic limitations are plainly evident. The little organ flourish that leads in the main melody and then interrupts it again midway through seems somewhat out of place. Build-up and development are non-existent: once you've heard the first verse/chorus, you've heard it all, and there isn't even any bridge section to play around with the dynamics. The lyrics are minimalistic, and you'd think that at least the second line of the chorus ("Hey Lloyd, I'm ready to be heartbroken / 'Cause I can't see further than my own nose at this moment") could use some variation over the multiple repetitions. In other words — no, not Beatleworthy. But minimalistically beautiful all the same, with the strings taking upon themselves the main burden of supplying the melody and the rock instruments primarily supplying the rapid, powerful beat. And most importantly, now that Campbell has snapped out of her forever-somnambulist persona, it turns out that her voice is capable of loud, ringing modulation, showing some technical and emotional range — the major chorus hook is all dependent on starting on high ("Hey Lloyd..."), then, as if the singer catches herself in embarrassment over getting too excited, going down on the second line. Nothing too difficult or original about that, just a feeling of healthy freshness, sunniness, and authenticity that cannot be shaked off by any technical skepticism. The feeling that, after two oh-so-nice, but ultimately forgettable, albums, Camera Obscura may have finally struck gold almost continues to linger on for the next track at least — ʽTears For Affairsʼ is already slower, flabbier, and subtler than the opening bomb, but it is one more example of Tracyanne continuing to experiment with her singing: the little falsetto «curls» at the end of verse lines work as cunningly sexy punches, and contrast effectively with the «reproaching» intonation of the chorus ("you had to drive, look me in the eye, whisper don't cry..."). Again, the song works on something more than pure atmosphere — finally, you get some elements that stick out far enough to sink your analytical teeth into them. Unfortunately, this feast of the senses does not last for long, and by the time the third and fourth tracks come along, we are largely back to the old mood-setting formula. The songs still tend to be louder and deeper than they used to (probably courtesy of the band's new producer, Jari Haapalainen, one of Sweden's indie heroes), but there is nothing intelligent I could tell you about ʽDory Previnʼ except for redirecting you to Wikipedia if you do not know who that is, or congratulating Tracyanne on choosing sophisticated allegories for her own troubles with men if you do — musically, the song is sort of a country-western-meets-baroque-pop mushy thing. On a song-for-song basis, I count two more relative successes. The title track brings back the lively tempo, the wall of sound, throws in a nice variation on an all-too familiar folk-pop riff, and probably expresses Campbell's personal philosophy better than everything else on here (the line "I'll admit I am bored with me" hits particularly hard). And the final number, ʽRazzle Dazzle Roseʼ, has a beautiful trumpet part — same «elegant melancholia» style as everything else on the album, but finally, with its own voice that stands out against the collective instrumental drone. If anything, this might just be Camera Obscura's weakest point: they are so in love with their instruments that they always tend to cram them together, and since they are playing different parts, the result is a lovably polyphonic, but confusing sound where the very idea of a «lead instrument» is dismissed as ridiculous. Why? They are perfectly capable of creating and playing a lovely melody without having it dissolved in the overall noise, as the best of these songs clearly demonstrate. Too many cooks, on the other hand, can do unspeakable things to the broth. Still, Let's Get Out Of This Country is really as good as this band ever gets in its hipster haze, and besides, let us show consistency — I've always preferred the «upbeat» stage of Belle & Sebastian to their «drowsy» years, so why should this be different for their most loyal disciples? Clearly a thumbs up here, and ʽLloydʼ at least is a must-hear for fans of twee beauty worldwide. Not too sure about the album cover, though — the hippie background does not seem to mesh well enough with the «don't bother me, I'm listening to my favorite college lecturer» look on the photo. But maybe that was just the point. MY MAUDLIN CAREER (2009) 1) French Navy; 2) The Sweetest Thing; 3) You Told A Lie; 4) Away With Murder; 5) Swans; 6) James; 7) Careless Love; 8) My Maudlin Career; 9) Forests And Sands; 10) Other Towns And Cities; 11) Honey In The Sun. Slowly, without excessive fuss or hurry, Camera Obscura are learning to write songs. If their early albums included, at best, one track — nay, scratch that, one chorus — that was nimble enough to hop on the last wagon of your drifting brain, My Maudlin Career already has, what, two or three songs of that caliber? Something like that. In a sense, considering that the music has always been extremely nice, it is a joy of sorts to watch them grow, at a snail's pace, into more experienced hookwriters than they used to be. Clearly, they have their own good understanding of what is and what is not a hook: like last time around, they plop their catchiest song right in the beginning. ʽFrench Navyʼ is an emotional sequel to ʽLloyd, I'm Ready...ʼ, but this time, puts its main strength into the music rather than the vocals — the song's main melody, carried by strings rather than guitar, is lushly baroque and exuberant, using its simplicity to great effect. Of course, there is no concealing the primary target audience of the song, either: the very first line goes "Spent a week in a dusty library..." and you have no doubts whatsoever that this is exactly where the protagonist did spend a week, or maybe even more, prior to "meeting by the moon on a silvery lake" (actually, I presume that the silvery lake was dreamt of in the same dusty library, provided, of course, that the dusty library itself was not dreamt of in some circle of virtual reality). Anyway, ʽFrench Navyʼ goes beyond lovable and becomes quite catchy — as does ʽSwansʼ, with its recurring nursery-rhyme musical theme (too cutesy and derivative to count as a musical achievement on its own, but the theme itself is really only a teaser for the rest of the song), and the closing ʽHoney In The Sunʼ, where, since the song refers to Mexico City, they come up with the great idea of bringing in a Mexican-style brass section; in the end, the ascending-descending brass riff of the song becomes its high point and a great way to finish off the album with its second-catchiest musical number. That does make three songs that I actually had the pleasure to namedrop, rather than just a boring obligation, which makes the whole thing at least as good as Let's Get Out Of This Country. The rest still suffers from the band's usual weaknesses — too limp, too reflective of second-rate folk-rock and country-rock material... and whose idea was it, anyway, to include a sentimental acoustic ballad named ʽJamesʼ? With the atmosphere involved, it gives me fleeting visions of James Taylor, and I thought Camera Obscura were only tangentially related to that vibe. I must also complain about the inefficiency of the title track: apparently, like last time around, we have to understand it (since it gives its name to the entire album) as some sort of «mission statement», but the statement in question does not go over the usual level of triteness and whining — the predictable he-broke-my-heart-I'm-not-letting-it-happen-again stuff where you absolutely know for sure that, with this kind of singing and attitude, this will happen over and over again. As Ms. Campbell puts her "this maudlin career must come to an end / I don't want to be sad again" on endless repeat, and all of the band's instruments lock and circle around it, drowning out each other in an infinite loop, you know that this maudlin career has only just started, and that, even if Camera Obscura ever end up mastering the speed of the Ramones, they will always be sad. Not because Tracyanne's next boyfriend dumped her once again, but because it simply becomes her. So why not just accept things at face value? That said, nobody really needs to pay that much attention to the lyrics of Camera Obscura, regardless of whether they come across as intentionally hyper-intellectualized (as they did on Let's Get Out...) or intentionally downgraded to college-girl romantic impressionism (as they do here). The only thing worth remembering is that they do their twee thing once again, and land a couple more well-placed melodic hits than is the usual norm — reason enough for one more thumbs up if you like this genre at all. DESIRE LINES (2013) 1) Intro; 2) This Is Love (Feels Alright); 3) Troublemaker; 4) William's Heart; 5) New Year's Resolution; 6) Do It Again; 7) Cri Du Coeur; 8) Every Weekday; 9) Fifth In Line To The Throne; 10) I Missed Your Party; 11) Break It To You Gently; 12) Desire Lines. Color me crazy, but I think that Desire Lines is the best album that Camera Obscura have released so far, and, judging by the average weight of other people's judgements (fans rather than critics — some positive reviews did slip out), I seem to be alone on this. Apparently, people are getting mighty tired of Tracyanne Campbell and her schtick, and they have every reason to, but all this time, it has seemed to me that the band had been on a steady «learning spree» — starting out with pure atmosphere and then slowly, taking as much time as they need, studying the essence of songwriting and how to make your vocal and instrumental melodies go not only in smoothed curves, but also in jagged hook-angles. Some of the weirdest criticisms of this album that I have seen accused Desire Lines of «playing it safe» and being too «commercial» and «mainstream». Personally, I have yet to see «twee pop» moving into the mainstream and replacing Taylor Swift and Katy Perry — and for what it's worth, Campbell and friends have always «played it safe» from the very beginning. If what those criticisms really mean is that the album sounds too overproduced, or too reliant on upbeat pop rhythmics, or too happy, or too sugary, to me, these are not criticisms — rather, they are confirmations of the simple fact that, for once, Camera Obscura is making significant progress in learning how to become a regular, sympathetic, solid, tasteful retro-oriented pop band. Here is just a brief annotated list of the best songs on the album and their main points of attraction. ʽThis Is Loveʼ is a charming piece of soul-pop, driven by a memorable brass riff and featuring Tracyanne at her sexiest, as she has finally become confident of her voice and its modulating abilities — the "turn out the light, just give in to the night" chorus dances quite close to «gorgeous» territory. ʽTroublemakerʼ sounds like the greatest song that 10,000 Maniacs never wrote, what with that folk-pop ascending riff and the moody "I know what you were talking about..." chorus. ʽNew Year's Resolutionʼ is a little overlong, but the song's friendly, faraway fuzz riff and the way it always escapes from the last notes of Campbell's chorus is charming and captivating. ʽDo It Againʼ, the lead single, may be essentially an unpretentious tribute to Motown exuberance ("call my number, 26 and three-quarters..." is such a Motownish start), but it's a perfectly viable variation, endowed with its own catchiness. This is already four out of five, and although the band still ends up running out of strong hooks by the time the second half comes about, this is already three or four times as much as it used to be. Yes, I think I can see the problem — much of the time, it sounds like Tracyanne has been placed on Prozac: where, in the past, melancholy used to triumph over happiness, now even the saddest songs sound like merry carousel rides (ʽBreak It To You Gentlyʼ may share most of its title with ʽBreak It To Me Gentlyʼ, but the way the singer delivers that chorus, you'd think there was nothing really to break in the first place). However, one should hardly rate songs based on whether they sound happy or sad — whether they sound smart or stupid is what really matters, and since there is no over-emoting or distinctive fakeness in the delivery, I'd rather take that sort of «mellowing out» as a sign of emotional maturity rather than «selling out». Tracyanne Campbell «sells out» the day she starts sounding (and looking!) like Lily Allen, which I could theoretically imagine, but not without a brain transplant in the works. Seriously, where the problem with those early records was excessive seriousness, this relative transition to more «major» moods, as well as lyrics that are less cluttered with useless historical trivia (because we all know by now that the band leader is quite well educated and astute), and actual attempts at singing complex vocal melodies rather than just breathing out same-shaped icicles, as far as my opinion is concerned, helps the band get more rather than less in line with their true nature and musical destiny. Bored I still was, occasionally (it usually always happens when they begin country-waltzing), but irritated — no, not even remotely so. They have solidified their position as a good, if not altogether great, pop band, and who knows, if this tendency continues and it is simply a case of «late musical pubescence», we might still be in for a big surprise in the future. Well, not very likely, but then I hardly could expect anything of this quality after their first two records, either. Thumbs up, of course. CARBON BASED LIFEFORMS 
THE PATH (1998) 1) Intro; 2) Behind The Corner; 3) Rain; 4) Rise To Tomorrow; 5) Hold; 6) Machinery; 7) And Contact; 8) Sinful Things; 9) Dreamshore Forest; 10) Submerged; 11) Contaminated Area; 12) Last Breath; 13) Station Blue; 14) Or Plan B. Okay, so properly speaking, this is not quite Carbon Based Lifeforms yet: this is credited to «Notch», a band that, in addition to Johannes Hedberg and Daniel Ringström, also included a third musician, Mikael Lindqvist, credited here for at least three of the tracks. The music itself is also significantly different from that of CBL proper, which, according to the musicians, was originally formed as a side project for just the two of them and then became a full-time occupation — Notch sound more chilly and transcendental, generally go easier on the bass and have a more New Age-like feel on the whole. But still, the connection is more than obvious, and it is no wonder that many «loose» discographies of CBL have this as their first entry, so we might as well start our carbonated journey right here. The Path, self-produced and self-released by this bunch of laborious Swedes, is no great shakes, but I'd still rate it as a fairly accomplished and pleasant electronic experience for background listening. Despite the length (and subsequent CBL releases would only become longer) and the relatively static nature of its tracks, it is surprisingly diverse, tempo-wise and style-wise, and takes in about equal proportions from minimalistic ambient, modern (or not so modern) classical, and various types of «soft» dance music. Besides, they actually got a retro vibe going on: either it is the choice of instrumentation or an intentional return to traditional analog-era harmonies or both, but there are plenty of moments here that remind me of classic 1970s electronics — Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Bowie/Eno's Berlin Trilogy, you know the drill. Something like that, instead of becoming yet another bunch of Aphex Twin or Autechre clones. A track like ʽRise To Tomorrowʼ would be quite telling. Steamy industrial intro, mechanical vocal overdubs, psychedelic synth clouds dripping acid droplets, out of which gradually emerges a simple, but steady bassline and, one after another, several lead keyboard loops chasing each other by the tail. Melody, complexity, atmosphere, the works. Something is lacking, though, to make the whole thing properly «otherworldly»: the warp engines splutter and try to kick in, but in the end, you get vague glimpses of a parallel universe without being transported. Maybe it's because we know these recipes from past decades all too well, and they have yet to learn how to add a secret ingredient that would make you want to relive it all over again. Likewise, ʽMachineryʼ, which spends its eight minutes running on a busily rotating set of electronic pistons, does sound like a working machine, but a very smooth, humble one — steam exhausted in the background, piston running in the foreground, and tiny kaleidoscopic gurgling taking place on a micro-scale. Never relenting, never stopping, never experiencing any technical problems, just quietly doing its thing, whatever it is, while you are either busy doing something else or trying, out of fun / curiosity / boredom (pick whichever you like), to adjust your brain pulse to the rhythm so that you, Notch, and the universe can all tune in to the same wavelength. (Didn't really do that much to my brain, but maybe I'm just too old and cynical). Sometimes they get almost too modern, though: ʽLast Breathʼ is an exercise in trip-hop, with a croaky wah-wah synth line making an «instrumental rap» bit on the side, and while I find the track amusing on its own, it is somewhat out of place on a record like this, especially when you find it jammed between the creepy chill of ʽContaminated Areaʼ and the subliminal bass pulses of ʽStation Blueʼ. On the other hand... diversity! Anyway, what is really the most pleasing here is the density of sound: for a couple (or even trio) of guys self-producing their first record, The Path is exceptionally rich in texture, right from the opening «quasi-orchestral» bit (ʽBehind The Cornerʼ) and until the very last track. If you are a major electronica fan, there's enough detail here, and endlessly shifting nuances, to keep you occupied for a long time. If you're not, you probably won't be planning to return to it any time soon, but even so, it is precisely this attention to layering and nuancing that inconspicuously plants seeds of respect for The Path into one's mind. That said, I will not succumb to the temptation of calling this «the lost CBL masterpiece» or anything like that — the music's debts to its ancestors are way too huge, and they wouldn't really start paying them off until the impressive, but still inanimate Notch evolved into Carbon-Based Lifeforms. HYDROPONIC GARDEN (2003) 1) Central Plains; 2) Tensor; 3) MOS 6581; 4) Silent Running; 5) Neurotransmitter; 6) Hydroponic Garden; 7) Exosphere; 8) Comsat; 9) Epicentre (First Movement); 10) Artificial Island; 11) Refraction 1.33. There is nothing particularly revelatory about this album, but for once, this actually works in favor of the music rather than against it — Hydroponic Garden is not an exercise in technical innovation, where the listener spends more time trying to «get» the music rather than enjoy it, but just your old-fashioned attempt at creating a vibrant musical landscape. No wonder the opening bassline of ʽCentral Plainsʼ immediately reminds you of Pink Floyd's ʽOne Of These Daysʼ: Hedberg and Ringström persist in drawing more influence from classic progressive rock and «vintage» electronica than from their modern day inheritors. The record has been described as belonging to the «psybient» genre, whatever that means, because, honestly, if that's a contraction from «psychedelic ambient», then most ambient music is psychedelic to some degree; and beyond that, there is nothing particularly «psychedelic» about Hydroponic Garden — «psychedelia» essentially means opening up an extra dimension of perception, usually through various studio trickery, and there's very little actual trickery here, just the standard array of tape loops and samples, all of them handled in a very straightforward manner. But the results are actually better than psychedelic — they're just... beautiful. Well, at least some of them are. ʽCentral Plainsʼ is constructed out of that relentless bassline, which sounds like a thick, crackling electric wire caught in an eternal wind blast, and a limitless wheat field of synthesizers stretching across the horizon, with breezes and crickets and an occasional snow shower and no signs of man's presence — not a lot of ingredients, really, but the ones present suffice to build up an atmosphere of lonesome natural elegance and ominous tension at the same time. I could actually do without the percussive trip-hop rhythms that «enliven» the track towards the end, but I guess the genre somehow demanded that, even if it somehow detracts from the general ambience, unless you want to picture a robot-driven combine harvester rolling across the field as well. Everything that follows largely falls in two classes of soundscapes — slightly dryer sci-fi abstractions like ʽTensorʼ and ʽNeurotransmitterʼ, clustering around staccato blips and bubbly bass, and warmer «naturalistic» panoramas like ʽExosphereʼ or the title track, with cloudy synthesizers, ghostly vocal harmonies, and nature sounds a-plenty (wind, water, chirping birdies, you know — everything in one's power to produce a convincing balance between manly digital and godly analog). My personal preferences clearly lie with the second kind of tracks, but even the first kind has its merits — particularly impressive is the expert way in which they build stuff up and tear it down, so that the music is static and dynamic at the same time: ʽNeurotransmitterʼ is a great example, with an exciting bass crescendo that gradually rolls upon you and then just as gradually fades away, like you've been lying on an imaginary railtrack and a steamroller was passing above you, inches away from crushing your skull into the ground. There is, of course, the length issue — 76 minutes of this stuff might seem like overkill, but then we should all be accustomed by now that there is nothing unusual about a modern album sounding like a small chunk from some classic album thrown under a microscope and stretched as wide as it can be stretched. It's a perfectly acceptable length for contemplators of the minuscule and admirers of the little pimples and pustules on the belly of each individual note. It's not really «minimalistic»: despite the lengthy running times of individual tracks, most of them have themes that undergo development, usually by means of additional sound rings slowly penetrating the mix (ʽRefraction 1.33ʼ) or the appearance/disappearance of rhythm tracks. Which is nothing new under the sun, but Hedberg and Ringström make this «sonic plant growth» the primary focus of their art — indeed, the whole album is like one huge hydroponic garden, where meticulously generated artificial conditions cause luxuriant natural growth. It's not immediately gratifying, and most people will hardly want to spend so much time trying to focus on all the minor details — but even as background muzak, Hydroponic Garden will still be creating a certain atmosphere of classiness, and, furthermore, this is the kind of electronic music that you can very safely play around people who have little tolerance for electronics, so ultimately traditional and emotionally accessible are its melodies and harmonies. For the lovers of microsound degustation, it might turn out to be a masterpiece; for everyone else, it might turn out to be boring, but not in the boring kind of boring, more like a moody, «there's-still-something-to-it» kind of boring. Personally, I prefer this by far to, say, almost anything by the far more popular, far more overrated Boards Of Canada, and give it an unflinching thumbs up (not that there's any real reason for flinching — the whole experience is as aurally smooth as can be). 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