anorak:
1. British: A person obsessively interested in a thing or topic that doesn't
seem to warrant such attention.
(Urban Dictionary)
Francesca Mancuso
13 October 1978
Web developer
Vegetarian
Teetotaler
Non-smoker
Sweet teeth
Trieste, Italy
London, UK
Because it seems that having a blog is a must... But it's wise to have your very personal one password-protected and accessible only to close friends who cannot sue you, and a boring, public, impersonal one, where you talk about your interests, just for the hell of it :)
Online since January 14th 2009.
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retrieving...
Last.fm tracks
retrieving...
Sunday, 2 August 2009
The melancholy sweetness of Camera Obscura
Last year, while listening to random music on LastFm I fell in love with Belle and Sebastian. For a long time I only listened to them, and still now I am a big fan of them.
I learnt about the existence of this branch of indie pop influenced by chamber pop artists of the 1960s. And I started to be interested in other bands, similar to Belle and Sebastian, that were recommended by LastFm.
If you don't know Belle and Sebastian, well, now you've heard of them, and I will be very unhappy if you don't go and listen to some of their great music :)
They are already quite popular, and they deserve all the success in the world. Their lead singer and songwriter Stuart Murdoch is just a genius ♥ ♥ ♥
I have this feeling that I would be happy to live in Glasgow. Bands from there create an awesome sound!
Anyway, this blog post is not dedicated to Belle and Sebastian but to less famous, yet equally awesome Camera Obscura, an other Scottish band whose first album was produced by Stuart Murdoch. This last fact is mainly the reason why I happened to listen to their music the first time. It was love at first hearing, really!
I got to know their third album first: Let's get out of this country. After listening to it an awful lot of times, I decided to move to the other ones, and especially the newest one: My maudlin career. Seriously, they are more than talented!
Tracyanne Campbell's dreamy voice sings beautiful, retro yet timeless, innocent, sweet, melancholy tales about love. Sublime melodies, stunning string and horn arrangements.
You can't remain indifferent, even if you are not an hopeless romantic :)
I am not sure how to label their kind of music. Folk? Chamber pop? Indie pop? And by the way, do we really need to label everything?
I've just started knowing these artists.
This is not a proper review of their albums. It's rather a more than warm recommendation: you have to listen to their music!
I will see them live at the Sheperd's Bush Empire on November 3rd. I just can't wait!
Interesting links:
Camera Obscura - Official Site
Review of "My maudleen career" on For Folk's Sake
Metacritic - search for Camera Obscura: they got quite a good score! Most reviews are very favorable, and user comments are mostly positive.
