The best pop music takes its sunny production and ingratiating melodies with a healthy dose of sadness, tempering what might have otherwise been a cloying aural mixture.
Twee as they are, indie pop groups like Belle & Sebastian and Apples in Stereo always spike their love songs with a hint (or sometimes more) of delicious melancholy. After all, what’s triumph without hardship?
Glasgow’s Camera Obscura keeps this in mind when crafting its ’60s-influenced songs, weaving vintage strings, organs and reverb-laden guitars through Tracyanne Campbell’s gorgeously vulnerable vocals. Last year’s “Let’s Get Out of This Country,” the band’s third album, found them confidently perfecting their sharp retro-pop while dropping references to everyone from fellow Scot Lloyd Cole to Mia Farrow.
We spoke with Campbell via phone from her Glasgow home in advance of the band’s Thursday show at the Bluebird Theater.
Q: You’ve said that despite your ’60s influences, you don’t romanticize the decade completely, what with its turbulent political climate. Do you think nostalgia confuses people’s sense of history?
A: Absolutely, it’s got to. You just want to take the best from the records and the era. I don’t want to listen to ’60s records and think about wars and bloody racism and sexism.
Q: So I gather you’re not making any kind of statement with your music?
A: I can only ever talk for myself and write from my own point of view. I’m not trying to say anything deep and meaningful when I write songs.
Q: You recorded a Peel session where you set Robert Burns’ poetry to music. Would you do something like that again?
A: If we had the time and we were asked, and if the project was interesting enough, then definitely. For instance, if somebody offered us a film score. I’d still be reluctant and kind of terrified at the prospect. The Robert Burns thing was something that absolutely horrified me, but I wanted to do it for John (Peel).
Q: I understand that you were one of Peel’s favorite bands before his death in 2004. That’s quite an honor.
A: He was such a fixture in the U.K. for music lovers. He was as British as a cup of tea or fish and chips or something as clichéd as that. So there was a big gap when (he died) and also it was kind of the end of something, the radio as we knew it in this country and perhaps anywhere. He had integrity. We spent time in his house and with his family, and played his birthday party a few months before his death.
Q: How have you adapted since co-founder John Henderson left the band?
A: The band’s been going for a long time and we’re so used to things changing. As long as the individuals enjoy what we’re doing, we’ll carry on. The minute somebody stops enjoying it, we’ll stop doing it.
Q: What question do you get asked most by American journalists?
A: It’s usually, ‘How do you feel being compared to Belle & Sebastian so much?’ I usually don’t know what to say.
Q: Right, since you’re both from Glasgow and have worked together. No one ever compares you to the other great bands from Glasgow, like Mogwai, Cocteau Twins or Orange Juice. Is there anything going on there we should know about here?
A: I really don’t listen to that much British music. Most of my favorite albums this year were American bands. There’s a woman called Amy Winehouse that’s fantastic. I loved the Midlake album, The Elected, Neko Case, Cat Power, Destroyer, M. Ward – things like that.
Q: Is it because you share an American label with those last few? (Merge Records)
A: No, they just happen to be the best!
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
Camera Obscura
INDIE POP|Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave.; 8 p.m., Thursday, with Pony Up!|$13.50|TicketWeb
