New Music Reviews: Itasca and Camera Obscura

We dive into a couple of female-fronted indie records this week. Glasgow twee-pop band Camera Obscura are back for their first record in over a decade. I’d never heard of Itasca before, but it’s one of my favourite new releases this year, with its shimmering guitars.

Camera Obscura

Look to the East, Look to the West

2024, 6.5/10
Glasgow twee-pop band Camera Obscura have been around for more than two decades. But their sixth album, Look to the East, Look to the West, is their first new album since 2013. They took a three-year hiatus after long-serving keyboard player Carey Lander passed away from osteosarcoma in 2015.

On their comeback record, they’re sometimes a little too insubstantial. They’re back with Jari Haapalainen, who produced their best-loved records, Let’s Get Out of This Country and My Maudlin Career.

The record gets off to a slow start with ‘Liberty Print’. Meanwhile, no band is twee enough to pull off the mundane chorus of ‘Baby Huey (Hard Times)’ – “the more I get to know you/the more I love you”. But there are some strong moments too – there’s some guitar muscle behind ‘Big Love’, while the oboe on the closing title track is gorgeous.

Look to the East, Look to the West has its moments, but it’s not the place to start with this band.

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Itasca

Imitation of War

2024, 9/10
The name Itasca is taken from a Latin / Ojibwe portmanteau place name meaning “truth-head” or “true source”. Kayla Cohen’s music has evolved over the past decade. She started as a freak folk artist, on 2012’s Grace Riders on the Road. There’s still a lot of folk in her music, but on Imitation on War she’s playing with a full band. The arrangements allow her guitar skills to shine through – Cohen handles all the guitars on Imitation of War.

It recaptures some of the spirit of Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, a singular record where a former folkie is backed by exploratory acoustic bass. Cohen plays both lead guitars on the opening ‘Milk’, interesting with herself beautifully. Songs like the title track and ‘El Dorado’ are driven by shimmering guitar textures, somewhere between Johnny Marr and Tom Verlaine. ‘Tears on Sky Mountain’ sounds like a Ricky Lee Jones song, although Cohen’s pure voice gives it a different spin.

Imitation of War is lovely, one of my favourite albums of 2024 thus far.

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