Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura (Latin; camera for "vaulted chamber/room", obscura for "dark") are a Scottish indie band from Glasgow. The band were formed in 1996 by Tracyanne Campbell, John Henderson, and Gavin Dunbar. Several other members performed with the band before David Skirving joined as a permanent guitarist. The band's first releases were the singles "Park and Ride" and "Your Sound" in 1998. The band's line-up changed in 2000 and 2001 when Lee Thompson joined as its permanent drummer, Lindsay Boyd joined as a keyboard player, and Skirving left and was replaced by Kenny McKeeve. The band have been compared musically to Belle And Sebastian, whose singer Stuart Murdoch, produced Camera Obscura's debut album Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi in 2001. The band still continues to play and their last album Desire Lines was released in 2013. (Read more on Wikipedia)

Links To Peel
Peel discovered the group through their debut album in 2001 and the band did five sessions for his show, including three from Peel Acres. In an interview with Pitchfork in 2006, Tracyanne Campbell, the singer was asked about John Peel and how influential he was. The following questions and answers came from Pitchfork's site:
 * Pitchfork: How important was John Peel in raising your band's profile?
 * Tracyanne Campbell: I think he was paramount in terms of people in Britain hearing about us, since he was pretty much the only guy who played our records for years. We always sent him stuff and did several Peel sessions. He was a fantastic person.
 * Pitchfork: You played at his birthday party once, right?
 * Tracyanne Campbell: We played at his birthday party roughly three months before he died, which is kind of strange.
 * Pitchfork: He was such an iconic figure; what was he like?
 * Tracyanne Campbell: Just a nice guy. People say that and it's like, "right," but he really was. You could tell he and his wife had no airs and graces, no pretensions at all. What you saw was what you got. He was quite shy actually, and I think that's one of the reasons why I liked him, because we were also quite shy and awkward. We were sitting at his house watching a bit of TV waiting for him to come home from work, and he came in, and everybody just sat there, because we were all too shy and repressed to say, "Hello, John Peel!"

​Festive Fifty Entries

 * 2001 Festive Fifty: Eighties Fan #08
 * 2003 Festive Fifty: Suspended From Class #30
 * 2003 Festive Fifty: Keep It Clean #47
 * ​Post-Peel


 * ​2006 Festive Fifty: Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken #03
 * 2009 Festive Fifty: My Maudlin Career #34
 * 2009 Festive Fifty: French Navy #12

Sessions
None of their sessions are commercially available.

1. Recorded: 2001-08-06. Broadcast: 14 August 2001. Repeated: None 2. Live and Broadcast at Peel Acres: 20 December 2001. Repeated: None 3. Live and Broadcast at Peel Acres: 07 March 2002. Repeated: None
 * Number One Son / Sun On His Back / Antiwestern / Before You Cry
 * Happy New Year / Little Donkey


 * Park N Ride / Eighties Fan / Pen & Notebook / Sugartown / Let Me Go Home

4. Recorded: 2003-09-25. Broadcast: 07 October 2003. Repeated: 18 December 2003

5.
 * Greyhound Going Somewhere / Return To Send Her / Phil And Don / San Fransisco Song

5. Live and Broadcast at Peel Acres: 22 January 2004. Repeated: None


 * Love My Jean / O' That Were Where Helen Lies / A Fond Kiss / Red Red Rose / Cock Up You're Beaver

Other Shows Played
(The following list was compiled only from the database of this site and Lorcan's Tracklistings Archive and is certainly incomplete. Please add further details if known.)

2001 2002 2003 2004
 * tbc
 * tbc
 * tbc
 * tbc