LaRM day 64 (Calexico-Isobel Campbell)

Calexico's next album, Feast of Wire (2003) expanded their palette still further, introducing some electronic sounds and beefing up the atmospheric interludes so that they play a much more cohesive role in the whole sound of the album. In fact, Feast of Wire is probably a more enjoyable listen than Hot Rail, if not as interesting as a whole. There are some really top flight songs on Feast of Wire and unlike other Calexico records it doesn't drag for any of its running time. The Latinate feel of the record is placed squarely at the front this time round, and if anything 'The Crystal Frontier' set out the band's stall for this album much more than it acted as a coda for Hot Rail. We skip over Garden Ruin which I haven't got, to 2008's Carried To Dust. The formula that they cracked with 'The Crystal Frontier' again informs the majority of the content of Carried To Dust and although it's starting to sound perhaps a little gimmicky by this point, it's still essentially fantastic stuff. The songwriting is as strong as ever and the brisk border music that they've pretty much made their own (and in some ways made up) is again the main focus. The instrumental scene setters are very few and far between and Carried To Dust is probably the most specifically song based album they've made to date.

Now we have the first two albums by Warp's glitch-hop queen, Mira Calix. Debut One On One is a skittering, jittery collection of disconcerting pieces, all broken time signatures and arhythmic beats. It's all pretty lo-fi and low-key but it certainly creates a mood. Unfortunately some of the longer pieces seem to drag and the whole thing has rather a sterile intellectual air which makes it hard to enjoy on a more visceral level. Much better is the follow-up, Skimskitta (2003) which is a warmer and more engaging record, which, despite using the same basic framework as One On One, has a much more inviting feel. I think this is partly down to the use of ambient washes as backgrounds for the twitchy glitch which grounds the music much more clearly and creates an atmosphere that is as musically engaging as it is brainy.

After those doses of icy cerebral theory we move on to something considerably more earthy. Terry Callier's What Color Is Love (1973) is another example of just how extraordinary the 70's were for music. While the 60's were all about showing off in a kind of juvenile way, it was during the 70's that rock music really started to grow up. What Color Is Love is a quite fantastic demonstration that with some intelligence, some skill and an open mind, rock music could be anything you wanted it to be. Everything is in this record, folk, blues, jazz, funk, even touches of psychedelia, but it's all treated with such an astonishingly deft touch that every element complements the other absolutely perfectly. It's the kind of record that I think Tim Buckley thought he was making and failing dismally to actually make. It's a towering musical achievement and one that is mystifyingly underappreciated generally. What Color Is Love is the best of three fantastic albums that Callier released between 1972-1974, and although the quality of his records dropped off fairly dramatically thereafter, What Color Is Love is another great 70's highlight.

And so on to something kitsch, it's Rita Calypso (she's really called Ana Laan but for the purposes of the alphabet let's pretend her name really is Rita Calypso) and her two albums Apocalypso (2002) and Sicalyptico (2004) (which I'll talk about together bearing in mind that they're pretty much the same thing done twice). I'm not sure that these superb bits of hyper-ironic bossa nova need any more describing than to say that they feature a choice sample of a David Niven interview and cover versions of songs by Astrid Gilberto and Nancy Sinatra. It's all high camp, deeply kitsch, but crucially it's not nastily self-aware and as a result if you can give yourself in to pastiche, it's absolutely charming. I suppose the essential difference is whether you can listen to this kind of stuff as if it were the real article. Normally the smug self-satisfaction of doing this kind of thing makes it unlistenable but in this case (and in the general case of Spanish label Siesta, who specialise in this cutesy 60's revisionism) it's done with such a finely attuned ear to the specifics of the style that although it's clearly pastiche it never comes across as parody and can be listened to with genuine enjoyment. She also recorded the best cover version of 'To Sir with Love' that I've ever heard so full marks for that alone.

Camera Obscura's fourth album, My Maudlin Career (2009) is further evidence of their peculiarly fervent worshipping of the Concretes sixties influenced, echoey pop. In truth it's a lovely record, with lots of delicately turned phrases, both musical and lyrical, and a deft touch with a retro sound. The best songs open and close the album ('French Navy' and 'Honey in the Sun') but in between are some charmingly open songs. The only problem that I have with the album generally is that it so clearly reeks of the influence of someone else. This is not the sound of first album Underachievers Please Try Harder, and the fact that Tracyanne Campbell even tries to emulate the vocal stylings of Victoria Bergsman just reminds me of the indie-schmindie scene-worshipping that I used to see in sickening close-up in Brighton. It's a shame because I think if they would be more honest with themselves the records would be even better than they already are.

While Isobel Campbell was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Belle & Sebastian experience, she started putting together some songs to record on her own and these were released under the name The Gentle Waves. They are really pretty weak records, and we'll come on to those when appropriate. However, after the relative disppointment of those records she seems to have taken a step back to refocus and the first tentative steps forward were released on the 'Time Is Just the Same' EP. The hideous insipid qualities of the Gentle Waves records are brilliantly negated on these songs, partly through the judicious choice of male vocalists to work against. The title track with Eugene Kelly is a really lovely song and sets the tone. The biggest success is the introduction of Mark Lanegan's growling, brooding vocal to complement Campbell's high wispy delivery. It's brilliant in two ways, firstly because it's a great natural contrast, and secondly because it almost feels like a deliberate message to Stuart Murdoch, whose indie vocals were those of the school weed compared to Lanegan's local thug. There are still a couple of mis-steps here (weedy Morricone cover 'Argomenti' is particularly egregious) but on the whole it's a sign that Campbell was finally trying to step out of Murdoch and B&S's shadow.

The success of the collaboration between Campbell and Lanegan had obviously struck them both and they reunited to record the album Ballad of the Broken Seas. What's particularly striking is that the two of them clearly have a common interest in the musical settings of these songs, which are designed to reflect a kind of gloomy Nancy & Lee, and that the real driving force behind the whole enterprise is Campbell. She produced the album and wrote most of the material (there are a couple of covers and one song by Lanegan) and it shows a songwriting skill that was evidently waiting for a style to suit it because the material is leagues ahead of her Gentle Waves work. It's a dark, sultry album and although it does have some excessively languid moments, for the most part it's great. They clearly thought so because they made two further albums together afterwards.