CD Project Thing #28 - Cake, Camera Obscura, Isobel Campbell

Cake - "Motorcade Of Generosity"
Cake - "Fashion Nugget"
Cake - "Prolonging the Magic"
Cake - "Comfort Eagle"

Cake are a band in need of a good "best of" collection. They're a
pretty unique act, and they have some worthwhile stuff. The ratio varies
a bit from album to album, but all of them have a few songs that are
really exceptionally good, along with a bunch more that strike me as
basically filler. On two albums (the just-sold "Motorcade Of
Generosity" and the long-ago-sold "Pressure Chef"), the ratio wasn't
quite high enough, but on the other three, they're just barely worth
owning. I'd probably sell in a second with a well-put together comp,
though.

Camera Obscura - "Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi" (Spanish Import)
Camera Obscura - "Underachievers Please Try Harder"

Camera Obscura - "Let's Get Out Of This Country"


In the beginning, Camera Obscura basically sounded like a female-fronted
early Belle and Sebastian. This connection was made even stronger by
the fact that they're from the same place as Belle and Sebastian, and
worked with (and apparently even dated) some of the members. This is by
no means a bad thing - while they never quite reached the heights of
early B&S, they did solid work and are well worth checking out.
Starting a little in their second album and really taking off in the
third, they've moved away a bit from the Belle and Sebastian sound to
one of their own, sort of a mix of 80s music and country. It works
well, and "Let's Get Out Of This Country" was one of the best albums of
2006.

Isobel Campbell - "Amorino"
Isobel Campbell - "Time Is Just The Same" EP

If you'd asked me even a few months ago, I probably would have said I really liked Isobel Campbell. Thing is, that's part-true, part-lie, and part-wishful thinking. The truth is, I do really like her, but only in her poppier moments. Her Belle and Sebastian songs and her poppy Gentle Waves and solo stuff is just astounding. Trouble is, it's become quite clear that she doesn't especially WANT to do poppy stuff, so she spends all her time doing jazz and folk and blues, and it ranges in quality from "pretty good" to "really really awful and painful".

"Amornio" was her first official solo album, although "The Gentle Waves" were essentially her solo project before this. It has a few decent moments (although a few of the best are re-recorded Gentle Waves songs), but it largely filled with Isobel being all jazzy and uninteresting. To me, the best song is easily "Time Is Just The Same", a duet with Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines, and it's also the most poppy and commercial sounding. Therefore, it's probably not a big surprise that they released a 6 track EP of it. I actually like the EP a lot better than the album (which is why I'm keeping it and selling the album) - bonus tracks include a cover of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" and her first collaboration with Mark Lanegan, who'd she go on to make a whole (good) album with (see below).

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - "Ramblin' Man" Single
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - "Ramblin' Man" Single (UK Import)
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - "Ballad Of The Broken Seas"

So like I said, Isobel Campbell went and made an album with Mark Lanegan (ex-Screaming Trees). You'd sort of think it maybe wouldn't work, since the two are such different people and have such different voices, but it's actually surprisingly pretty great. It's sort of folky and bluesy, which like I said doesn't work when she does it alone, but here it does, and it's easily her best solo album (if it really counts as a solo album). The best track is a cover of "Ramblin' Man" by Hank Williams (and it was one of my favorite singles of all of 2005), but it's probably not good enough that I have to keep the singles, seeing as they're backed with tracks that are pretty inferior to what's on the album.

Isobel Campbell - "O Love Is Teasin'" EP (UK Import)
Isobel Campbell - "Milk White Sheets"

These two releases (apparently recorded at the same sessions, and sharing a few tracks) lean mostly towards the "folk" side of the scale. It's not as good as her pop stuff, but it's certainly better than the jazz, so it JUST barely hangs on in the collection, for now. All I know is, from now on, I check into Isobel Campbell cds before I buy them...