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

Marissa Nadler has been performing since 2000, releasing a number of well-received studio albums, and most recently, July on Bella Union in early 2014. She taught herself to play guitar as a teenager, and at the age of 15 began to write her first songs. Her musical style has been described as “dream folk”, featuring her haunting mezzo-soprano over the steady foundation of her acoustic guitar. Lyrically, her music has a strong narrative aspect, featuring introspective and American Gothic themes complimented by reverb-laden instrumentation and production.
 
The Boston Globe wrote “She has a voice that, in mythological times, could have lured men to their deaths at sea, an intoxicating soprano drenched in gauzy reverb that hits bell-clear heights, lingers, and tapers off like rings of smoke”.
 
July, her first release on Sacred Bones (US) and Bella Union (EU) Records, was recorded at Seattle’s Avast Studio, pairing Nadler with producer Randall Dunn (Earth, Sunn O))), Wolves in the Throne Room). Dunn matches Nadler’s darkness by creating a multi-colored sonic palette that infuses new dimensions into her songs. July is the kind of release that reminds you why NPR counts Nadler’s songwriting as so “revered among an assortment of tastemakers”, and an album she couldn’t have made earlier in her career because, as every songwriter knows, she didn’t just write these songs: she lived them.
 
“The question of whether Marissa Nadler’s elegant folk music ought to soundtrack our dreams or haunt our nightmares has been a thread through her uncannily cohesive catalogue. With six albums in 10 years and never a misstep, Nadler has grown her own perceptive language . . . Nadler has few direct contemporaries—Bill Callahan, Sharon Van Etten, or Alela Diane come to mind—but here, on July’s most extreme song [“Dead City Emily”], she could sensibly share bills with, say, Iceage or Deafheaven.” Pitchfork 8.1
 
“On her sixth album, Boston-born singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler gets darker than ever before . . . Gone is the lithe, limber-voiced ingénue of last year’s ‘Wedding,’ and in her place lies Nadler’s blackest-ever-black album. New songs like ‘Was It a Dream’ and ‘Desire’ benefit from darker hired guns: Eyvind Kang’s strings, Steve Moore’s synths and the guitars of Phil Wandscher lend emotional heft and existential dread to these 11 phantasmagoric love songs.” NPR
 
“July unfolds as a near-perfect song cycle.” All Music
 
“Gorgeously ethereal” SPIN
Marissa Nadler official site
Marissa Nadler on Twitter
Marissa Nadler on Soundcloud