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Camera Obscura (UK) Look To The East, Look To The West - Baby Blue & White Galaxy Vinyl - Sealed US vinyl LP album (LP record)
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| Tracklisting / Additional Info: |
Look to the East, Look to the West, the new album by Camera Obscura, is a revelation. The Tracyanne Campbell-led outfit, reuniting with producer Jari Haapalainen (Let’s Get Out of This Country, My Maudlin Career), have crafted an album that simultaneously recalls why longtime fans have ferociously loved them for decades while also being their most sophisticated effort to date.
It is also the most hard-fought album of Camera Obscura’s career. Following the 2015 passing of founding keyboardist and friend Carey Lander (to whom the penultimate track “Sugar Almond” is addressed), the band went into an extended hiatus. They remained in contact, but their status was uncertain until they announced their return, having been invited to perform as part of Belle & Sebastian’s 2019 Boaty Weekender cruise festival, along with a pair of sold-out warm-up shows in Glasgow. Donna Maciocia (keys and vocals) joined founding members Kenny McKeeve (guitar and vocals), Gavin Dunbar (bass), and Lee Thomson (drums and percussion) for those shows and has since become a regular songwriting partner of Campbell’s.
Recorded in the same room where Queen wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Look to the East, Look to the West feels big, a widescreen reframing of Camera Obscura’s sound that, paradoxically, saw the band go back to basics there are no string or brass arrangements, with more emphasis placed on piano, synthesizers, Hammond organ, and drum machines, and, perhaps most strikingly, the group have dropped the veil of reverb that characterized their previous albums. The tinges of country and soul that give Camera Obscura’s baroque take on pop music its bittersweet edge have never been more apparent guitars shimmer into the distance, keys haunt, and Campbell’s voice searches for the heart, reflecting on love, loss, and the passage of time.
Lead single “Big Love” relishes in the space between country rock and prog, a pining break-up anthem featuring the soaring pedal steel of Tim Davidson. It’s a Nashville Sound heartbreaker, tackling the complexity of wanting to rekindle a bad relationship with Campbell’s uncanny ability to render the past: “It was a big love, she said / That’s why it took ten years to get her out of her head,” she begins.
“We’re Going to Make It in a Man’s World” was co-written with Maciocia for filmmaker Margaret Salmon’s 2021 film Icarus (After Amelia). (Salmon, in turn, shot Look to the East, Look to the West’s cover photography featuring Fiona Morrison, who was on the cover of Camera Obscura’s debut, Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi.). Ironic and sincere, the two navigate the reality of being women in the music industry, somehow floating over Davidson’s pedal steel and Maciocia’s keys. “The Light Nights” is a swooning song propelled by a western shuffle and killer guitar, striking a balance between a particularly good honky-tonk joint’s jukebox and a lost gem of California pop music waiting to be discovered in a 7” bin.
Look to the East, Look to the West is the sound of a band that has grown more confident in its sound and purpose than ever. It is Camera Obscura at their best and most evocative, an album that completely rearranges the listener’s emotional core, leaving them sad and exhilarated at the same time. Camera Obscura’s catalog is replete with songs people point to as life-changing, songs that will stick with them all their lives. Look to the East, Look to the West has 11 of them; take your pick.
Side A
1. Liberty Print
2. We’re Going to Make It in a Man’s World
3. Big Love
4. Only a Dream
5. The Light Nights
Side B
6. Sleepwalking
7. Baby Huey (Hard Times)
8. Denon
9. Pop Goes Pop
10. Sugar Almond
11. Look to the East, Look to the West
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| Condition : |
Factory sealed from new. This item is unplayed. Click here for more info. |
| Availability: |
In Stock - Buy Now for shipping on Monday 14th October
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| Year of Release: |
2024 |
| Artist: |
Camera Obscura (UK) (click here for complete listing) |
| Title: |
Look To The East, Look To The West (click here for more of the same title) |
| Price: |
£ 29.99, US$ 39.29
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| Postage/Shipping: |
Add item to your basket for a postage/shipping quote |
| Format: |
vinyl LP album (LP record) |
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| Record Label: |
Merge Records |
| Catalogue No: |
673855083902 |
| Country of Origin: |
USA
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| Language: |
Regardless of country of origin all tracks are sung in English, unless otherwise stated in our description. |
| Date of Release: |
03 May 2024
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| EIL.COM Ref No |
CSULPLO839849 (quote this reference in any e-mails, letters, faxes or phone calls to help identify this item) |
| Barcode : |
673855083902 |
| Genres: |
Indie, NME Indie/Alternative Artists
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| Related Artists: |
Belle & Sebastian, Cecile Aubry, Eska, God Help The Girl, Isobel Campbell, Looper, The Gentle Waves |
| Complete Stock List: |
Camera Obscura (UK) |
| email: |
sales@eil.com to contact our sales team. |
| Alternative Names: |
None |
| To order by phone: |
Call +44 1474 815010 quoting EIL.COM reference number CSULPLO839849 |
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![](http://gb.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=839849&media=https://images.eil.com/large_image/CAMERA%5FOBSCURA%5F%28UK%29_LOOK%2BTO%2BTHE%2BEAST%2C%2BLOOK%2BTO%2BTHE%2BWEST%2B%2D%2BBABY%2BBLUE%2B%26%2BWHITE%2BGALAXY%2BVINYL%2B%2D%2BSEALED-839849.jpg&description=CAMERA OBSCURA Look To The East, Look To The West
(<B>Indie Store Exclusive</B> 2024 US/EU limited edition
11-track LP pressed on <B><FONT COLOR ="#89CFF0">Baby
Blue &</FONT> White Galaxy Vinyl</B>. <I>Camera
Obscura</I> return to Merge Records, reuniting with producer
Jari Haapalainen for an album of sweeping heartbreakers. For
fans who have loved them from the start and those
experiencing their lush pop for the first time! Gatefold picture
sleeve with hype sticker, factory sealed. Recommended) )
