Cait Stoddard January 30th, 2024 - 5:36 PM
Indie-pop band, Camera Obscura, has announced Look to the East, Look to the West, their first new album in over ten years, will be out through May 3 Merge Records. The group, led by guitarist and vocalist Tracyanne Campbell, have reunited with Jari Haapalainen, who produced the band’s 2006 album, Let’s Get Out of This Country, 2009’s My Maudlin Career, and 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.
Look to the East, Look to the West was the most hard-fought album of Camera Obscura’s career. Following the 2015 passing of founding keyboardist and friend, Carey Lander, 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 and warm-up shows in Glasgow.
In light of the upcoming album, Camera Obscura has shared their new song, “Big Love,” which relishes in the space between country rock and prog. The tune is a pining break-up anthem featuring the soaring pedal steel of Tim Davidson.
The tune is also a Nashville sound heartbreaker, which tackles 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. “‘Big Love’ is our tribute to Waylon Jennings, with a nod to Sandy Denny and prog rock band Scope. It’s a song about not looking back, having faith in the present and future.”
Look to the East, Look to the West Track List
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
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
