Camera Obscura is excited to announce their long-awaited return to the US with July tour dates. Their latest album, Desire Lines (“a career best”-NPR), was released early last summer, and was followed by a US tour, which included support dates with She & Him. Soon after, Tracyanne gave birth to her first child and went on maternity leave. This past January, Gavin also became a father. Tracyanne said “the new parents are looking forward to coming over after maternity & paternity leave, and the rest are looking forward to returning to work. ” The band is also playing shows in the EU in May.
 
Carey Lander notes: “We are looking forward to hitting the road in the USA and Canada for some shows, especially as we finally get to make up the New York show we sadly had to cancel last year. Go book your tickets and we’ll see you soon.”
 

“Desire Lines is more confident and direct than anything in the band’s catalog…On this album, lust and chastity sound like equally honest parts of the same whole. The combination makes Desire Lines sound like a career best.”
-NPR
 

“There aren’t many groups whose fifth album is as riveting as their first, but there also aren’t many groups with a vision as clear, focused and defined as that of Camera Obscura. And with (Tracyanne) Campbell at the helm, five more of the same will be just as welcome.”
-AMERICAN SONGWRITER
 

“Desire Lines is another superbly crafted album, well worth the wait. Her songs return to some familiar themes, but she hasn’t come close to exhausting her melancholic muse yet, and the band’s arrangements are, as always, filled with surprise.”
-PASTE
 

“Desire Lines is its own nonguilty pleasure, soaked in romanticism—yet bracingly smart.”
-MOTHER JONES

Laura Cantrell is a country music artist based in New York City. Born in Nashville, TN, she came to New York to attend Columbia College, and found that her abiding interest in country music helped her stay connected with her family roots. That interest was the motivation behind her long-running radio program on WFMU in Jersey City, NJ, “The Radio Thrift Shop.” Beginning on WFMU in 1993, the program was a Saturday afternoon staple in the New York area for 13 years, then moved to WFMU.org and ran for two seasons on BBC Radio Scotland as a summer replacement in 2005 and 2006. In her ten-year recording career, Cantrell has released three acclaimed albums: “Not The Tremblin’ Kind,” “When The Roses Bloom Again,” and “Humming By The Flowered Vine.” She has toured extensively in the United Kingdom, Europe and Ireland, and was a favorite of pioneering British disc jockey John Peel, who called her 2000 album “Not The Tremblin’ Kind” “my favorite record of the last ten years, possibly my life.” Cantrell recorded several Peel sessions for the BBC from 2000-2004 and appeared on the first Peel Day program on Radio One commemorating the first anniversary of Peel’s death.
 
Cantrell’s music has been celebrated in the press including features in The New York Times, “O” Magazine, Elle, and the Wall Street Journal. Cantrell’s music has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “On Point,” and “Weekend Edition.” She has performed on “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Mountain Stage,” and the “Grand Ole Opry,” and appeared on the television programs “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and the Sundance Channel’s “Spectacle: Elvis Costello.” In recent years, she has been a contributor to The New York Times and VanityFair.com.
 
Last spring, Cantrell released Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs Of The Queen of Country Music, a recording she made in honor of one of her heroines, the great Kitty Wells. A meditation on femininity in country music, the set takes its title from an original song written in tribute to Wells. At present, Cantrell is at work on her fourth album of original material.