Three years ago, twee/indie pop beloveds Camera Obscura suffered a tragic loss, with keyboardist Carey Lander unfortunately passing away due to bone cancer. At the time, the future of the band was undecided, and decided to take a break, with frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell recording and releasing a great record with Danny Coughlan as Tracyanne & Danny earlier this year.
Past the tragedy however, the band has decided that they are ready to return to the stage. Their homecoming was announced by Belle & Sebastian’s “Boaty Weekender” Festival lineup.
Read Camera Obscura’s official statement of return below.
Hi folks,
It’s been a while…
We’ve had some much needed time out from Camera Obscura over the past three years. We’d like to thank you all for your kindness, support and for your patience. We know there are some folks wondering if we would ever play again, or if we’re even still a band. We’ve been wondering that ourselves but we have some news that will hopefully clear that up.
We’d like to tell you that we will be joining our pals Belle and Sebastian next year to play The Boaty Weekender.
This particular gig feels like the right place for us to start being a band again.
We’re grateful to Belle and Sebastian for asking us, they have always been very supportive of us and of course they were very special to Carey.
We are excited to play again and we really look forward to seeing some of you there.
Tracyanne, Gavin, Kenny and Lee x
The band formed in 1996 in Glasgow (same year as Belle & Sebastian), and they released a couple well-received EPs in the late 90’s, but they only released their first full-length in 2001 in the form of Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi. With every following release, the band arguably only became better and better. 2003 saw the release of Underachievers Please Try Harder, but 2006’s Let’s Get Out of This Country really firmly solidified the band as an important band in the legacy of twee pop, with such incredible songs as “Lloyd I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken” or “If Looks Could Kill.”
Check out the full Facebook postbelow.