Camera Obscura Showed What Mature Coolness is at Lpr [photos]

Photos by Jenny An

Coolness depends on a pivot, a subverting of meaning — love masquerading as lust, lust as love, commerce as art – which results in a winking knowingness. While on an album, Camera Obscura can present insecurity and uncertainty, in concert the well-oiled machine that has been more or less touring altogether for nearly two decades is quite the opposite. That assurance shows on newer penned songs.

There’s something about listening to a song like “Books Written for Girls” from 2003′s Underachievers Please Try Harder, whose origins have been smoothed and carried down the river with age. The contrast between live confidence and the foot-shuffling despair of lines like, “You probably thought I had more upstairs/I disappoint you” pivots hardest. Rather than Taylor Swift singing about living in a big ol’ city, Tracyanne Campbell is showing it.

Who says coolness doesn’t develop with age?

Camera Obscura