Happy May everyone. This has been a very Glasgow week for me. I went to see Teenage Fanclub and then Belle & Sebastian and now today I review the first new Camera Obscura album in 11 years. It’s one of seven album I review in Indie Basement this week, the others being Penny Arcade (James Hoare of Veronica Falls and Ultimate Painting), Mdou Moctar, The Lemon Twigs, Ibibio Sound Machine, Lightning Bug, and an album of Broadcast demos from what might’ve made their fourth album.
Over in Notable Releases, Andrew reviews the fantastic new Jessica Pratt album (highly recommended), plus Kamasi Washington, Hana Vu, and more.
You can also catch up on April with the monthly Indie Basement roundup of best songs and albums, not to mention the best punk and rap.
More Basement-adjacent news from this week: Norwegian band Casiokids are back, and so are NYC/Philly shoegazers Mahogany; The Chameleons are about to release their first new music in 23 years; and Redd Kross have a new double album on the way.
That’s enough intro banter, don’t you think? Head below for this week’s reviews…
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Camera Obscura – Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)
First album in 11 years from these Glaswegians finds them at their winsome, charming best
It is really good to have Camera Obscura back. Their previous album, Desire Lines, was released 11 years ago and in that time the band has gone through a lot. Keyboardist Carey Lander died in 2015, and Tracyanne Campbell lost her brother and also became a mother. (Plus: covid and everything else 2020 had to give the world.) The grief and joy are all present on Look to the East, Look to the West, the Glaswegian band’s wonderful sixth album which is a return to form in many ways. After two albums for 4AD they are back on Merge, home to their best albums (Underachievers Please Try Harder and Let’s Get Out of This Country), and they are reunited with producer of those, Jari Haapalainen. Recorded mostly live-to-tape at Rockfield Studios in Wales, there’s an energy to these songs, even the saddest, sparest of them, like the dreamy “Sleepwalking,” which is one of a few about Campbell’s brother. (The wonderful “Liberty Print,” which opens the album, is another.) As usual, Campbell brings empathy and that Scottish wit to her lyrics, cutting the bitter with the sweet, instinctually knowing when to lighten the mood with a sly joke. Camera Obscura have never lacked in tunes, but the melodies are especially memorable this time while taking some surprising turns with inspired arrangements, including well-deployed pedal steel that underlines the band’s long-present country tendencies. (The guitar playing is, across the board, understated yet spectacular on this album.) All these elements are present on instant-classic “We’re Going to Make it In a Man’s World,” where the melodies, arrangements, vocals and lyrics all come together in that winsome way that few do like Camera Obscura. “The birds and the bees, they’ve been so sweet to me,” Campbell coos, facing off against an insurance adjuster, as bells chime around her words, then adding, “Take your report, shove it right down your throat.” It’s heartening that this group, which is rapidly approaching their 30th anniversary are still making music, this good, this vital.
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Penny Arcade – Backwater Collage (Tapete)
Fans of Veronica Falls and Ultimate Painting take note: James Hoare’s new solo project is terrific
James Hoare is co-founder of two Indie Basement all-star groups — Veronica Falls and Ultimate Painting — and outside of those he’s continued to make wonderful, lightly psychedelic guitar indiepop with a few other projects. Penny Arcade, however, is Hoare’s most purely solo project and its debut album — his first music since before the pandemic — was made almost entirely on his own at his home studio. If you’re familiar with his other groups, the melodies and vocals on Backwater Collage will be instantly recognizable but the arrangements are among his most warm and lush ever put to tape. Vocals are all but whispered and, paired with his penchant for minor chords, gives gentle earworms like “Dear John,” “Jona,” and “Don’t Cry No Tears” (a quiet stunner that is not a Neil Young cover) an eerie but inviting quality. Backwater Collage is a perfect back-to-mine album that sounds just as good the next morning.
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Broadcast – Spell Blanket: Collected Demos 2006 – 2009 (Warp)
What might Broadcast’s fourth album have sounded like? This demo compilation offers clues, another glimpse of Trish Keenan’s genius
We lost Trish Keenan way too soon; she was just 42 when she died after contracting the H1N1 virus in January 2011. At that point it had been six years since Broadcast had released a proper studio album. Trish and bandmate James Cargill had made lots of demos, though, and those have now been collected on this double album. There are 36 of them on Spell Blanket, most of which fall into the “song sketch” category, hovering around a minute, with many just featuring Keenan’s voice and guitar/keyboard. A few, like lead cut “The Song Before The Song Comes Out,” was probably a voice memo, trying to get a melody or idea down before it was gone into the ether. Despite the brevity, they’re all imbued with that Broadcast pixie dust, a mix of naivete and psychedelica, though their clinical approach to sound is largely absent. It’s like finding a box of old photos on the street and discovering you recognize people in the background of most of them. They’re faded and out of focus but familiar and compelling. Some of the more fleshed out songs (“Where Are You?,” “I Want to Be Fine,” “The Games You Play”), you can almost imagine where they might have gone if given full Broadcast arrangements. We’ll never really know, but it’s nice to have this opportunity to wonder.
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The Lemon Twigs – A Dream Is All We Know (Captured Tracks)
Sixth album from powerpop wunderkinds Brian and Michael D’Addario is their best yet
Brian and Michael D’Addario were teenage wunderkinds when they first formed The Lemon Twigs a decade ago, coasting on virtuosic multi-instrumental skill and their ability to mimic earth-toned ’70s pop that most of their peers didn’t know existed. (The first time I saw them play, to about 14 people, I was slack-jawed that these kids were making music that owed more to Paul Williams and The Raspberries than anything from the last 40 years.) Early records dazzled on a technical skill level but you could tell they were still working through their influences, which then included a lot of Broadway. But having spent the last few years as in-demand session musicians playing on other people’s records (Weyes Blood, Drugdealer, The Killers) and honing their own craft, their songwriting has grown closer to matching their instrumental abilities. A Dream is All We Have is their sixth and most enjoyable album yet. They still sound like a group that’s been teleported from the past with influences loudly on their sleeves, but they’ve mostly shed their musical theater tendencies and have delivered 12 impeccably crafted power-pop nuggets which are all the more impressive when you learn the D’Addarios played, recorded and produced it all themselves at their all-analog Brooklyn studio — including most of the strings and horns! The Beach Boys and Beatles loom large, but so do The Left Banke, The Monkees, The Byrds and Jimmy Webb. The one track they didn’t produce here is “In the Eyes of a Girl” which was made with Sean Lennon at his Upstate NY studio and is very, very Beach Boys. What’s really wild is they’re still in their mid-20s and are really just hitting, as they sing in the album’s opening song, their “golden years.”
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Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice (Matador)
This Tuareg band deliver fiery politics and guitar solos on their seventh album
“This album is really different for me,” says Tuareg guitarist and singer Mdou Moctar of his namesake band’s seventh and most overtly political album yet. “Now the problems of terrorist violence are more serious in Africa. When the US and Europe came here, they said they’re going to help us, but what we see is really different. They never help us to find a solution.” Even if you don’t understand the words on Funeral for Justice or have a translated lyric sheet handy, you can feel the anger, urgency and passion in Mdou’s guitar-playing which is, to trot out rock critic cliche, incendiary. The sparks that fly off his strings, even on the quieter songs, is enough to light up a night sky and reason enough to listen to this album. Most of the album is not quiet, though, with music that is invigorating, stirring and has revolution on its mind.
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Ibibio Sound Machine – Pull the Rope (Merge)
It’s banger after banger on this London group’s fifth album
After working with Hot Chip on last year’s Electricity, London dance collective Ibibio Sound Machine collaborated with Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, M.I.A.) for their fifth, and founder/singer Eno Williams says they’ve switched venues “from the sunny buoyancy of a sunlit festival to a sweat-soaked, all-night dance club.” There’s still plenty of bright positivity on Pull the Rope but there’s no denying the hot atmosphere on this fantastic mix of electro-funk, afrobeat, acid house, techno and other clubby styles. Songs like “Fire,” “Mama Say” and “Let My Yes Be Yes” refuse to let you sit still while listening and the blend of electronic and organic elements is absolutely infectious. Best of all is “Got to Be Who You Are,” a banger that plays like a mash-up of 1991, with house-style vocals atop backing that could be acid jazz if it left the jazz at home. It’s only the early days of May, but Pull the Rope feels like the summer starts now.
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Lightning Bug – No Paradise (self-released)
Gorgeous folky dreampop abounds on Lightning Bug’s fourth album
After releasing 2021’s Color of the Sky on Fat Possum, Lightning Bug’s Audrey Kang decided to put her next album out herself. That solitary spirit matches well with a record that was written during and immediately after a 4000-mile motorcycle trip from Nayarit, Mexico to NYC. No Paradise is a lonely but lovely record and doesn’t suffer one bit from not being made with a label’s help. Kang’s songs incorporate elements of folk, dreampop, shoegaze and electronic music, for music that has groove and sweep. There are moments, like on the windswept “Opus,” that recall “Possession” era Sarah McLachlan if she listened to more early-’90s UK indie guitar music. You can feel the road in these songs and while you might not want to listen to it exclusively on your next cross-country road trip, it would be good to keep No Paradise in constant rotation, especially near dusk.
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