Albums of the Year # 76 BC Camplight - The Last Rotation of Earth

 

You can tell when someone who has operated under the radar for a number of albums and a number of years is on the verge of proper recognition. They generally get a substantial feature in the latest issue of Mojo.

It happened to Sunny War a few months back. Now it's happening to 'American in Manchester' oddball and ironist BC Camplight on the occasion of his latest record The Last Rotation of Earth. 

Camplight takes a very specific perspective on life and all that it entails, and that's blindly evident from the opening notes of the title track of the record which also kicks it off.

Life from an angle. Wry. The kind that life experience at its cruelest and toughest teaches you. The wryness of Father John Misty, Phosphorescent and The Tallest Man on Earth. Gallows irony. Not despair exactly bur a smile through fiercely gritted teeth certainly. The kind of humorous approach adopted so brilliantly in Terry Gilliam's Eighties classic Brazil. 1984, if it were funny.

It's all perhaps a little bit too dry for me sometimes. I find records that adopt a persona and maintain them to the bitter end rather than season the dish for variation, slightly hard work by track six or seven. Nevertheless, on second play this strikes me as a serious grower. It gnaws at you pretty quickly with its clear 'end of the world' 'panic attack' narrative, will do very well for well for BC and deservedly so.