Camera Obscura

Interviewed By: Chris DePaul

Date: 2006-06-26

Camera Obscura is a sextet pop group from Glasgow, Scotland – home of such bands as Belle & Sebastian and Franz Ferdinand. The band formed in 1996 as a rotating group of musicians performing in and around their hometown. By 2001 Camera Obscura had evolved to the line-up we see today. In 2004 they extended their reach beyond Europe, venturing across the Atlantic into a great amount of American interest. Camera Obscura’s most recent album, Let’s Get Out of This Country, was released June 2006 to critical acclaim.

Carey Lander – piano, organ and vocals in Camera Obscura - was in the midst of a European/North American tour when foundinthemargins caught up with her. She divulged the books she finds inspirational and uses to escape the repetitiveness of day-to-day life.

“Reading reminds me to pay attention to the tiny things and to find ways of seeing beauty in ugly, boring places. Books allow you to fall in and out of love on a daily basis. I enjoy the solitude of reading compared to the experience of watching a film, which can frustrate me both through the feeling of being manipulated as part of an audience, and for the many filters that occur on the journey of script-writing, acting, and directing.

“The thing I value most about reading is the way it allows you to think more interesting thoughts. So much of life is taken up with the arbitrary, banal and dreary thoughts that become so repetitive. I bore myself most of the time. Reading exposes you to so many new words, views, ideas, visions, sensations, stories. It encourages me to imagine again, something you tend to disallow yourself to do when you start growing up because it is associated with being a child.

“I suppose some of my favourites hold their place because I first read them as a teenager and they provided me with inspiration and escape during the difficult years. I was delighted to discover all the teenager’s classics; Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, pretty much all of George Orwell, On the Road by Kerouac, Camus’ The Plague, Sartre’s Nausea, all the kind of slightly pretentious, idealistic, pessimistic stuff that makes alienation more attractive and more bearable.

“A bit later on I got into Murakami who I see as something of a guilty pleasure because his books are generally so easy to read. I read Sputnik Sweetheart first, soon followed by Norwegian Wood and then the rest. I still really enjoy the pop culture references and that he describes the characters’ eating habits.

“In the last few years I have been reading a lot of American fiction; Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Lorrie Moore, Saul Bellow, Kathy Acker, John Updike, Annie Proulx, Raymond Carver and I’m looking forward to planning my summer reading around an American theme in expectation of our forthcoming US tour.

“Reading informs my contributions to Camera Obscura in that it inspires me to want to surprise people by things and to create an emotional response in somebody in the same way that my favourite books and records do for me.

“Reading is an escape, a discipline and a priceless treasure.”

These Artists Liked the Same Books As Camera Obscura:

Camilla Gibb
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Purchase Books
You can purchase the books recommended by Camera Obscura here.

Links:
http://www.camera-obscura.net