BC Camplight – Deportation Blues

Deportation Blues comes from a place of great turmoil, further magnifying the dynamism and creativity that underpins BC Camplight’s work. Brian Christinzio is definitely here to stay

Album Review by Eugenie Johnson | 20 Aug 2018
Album title: Deportation Blues
Artist: BC Camplight
Label: Bella Union
Release date: 24 Aug

'Let me in;' the opening, harmonic words of BC Camplight’s new album help introduce the turbulent story behind it. Following the release of 2015's How to Die in the North, Brian Christinzio was told he was being deported from the UK. It was only through managing to obtain an Italian passport through his grandparents that he was able to return. The demons of that battle cast a definitive shadow over Deportation Blues.

Across the course of the album, Christinzio documents his thoughts through a myriad of genres, whether it’s the chaotic synth pulses of I’m Desperate or the lilting piano balladry of When I Think of My Dog. With Hell or Pennsylvania, smoky jazz nestles up against pop-tinged passages. Midnight Ease is cosmic and smooth but occasionally descends into a synth-propelled clamour, causing Christinzio to wittily backtrack mid-song on his claim that 'I hate being dramatic' by admitting 'alright, that was pretty dramatic.'

On paper, it might not seem as though these disparate elements would hang together but Christinzio draws them together so that they form a cohesive logic all of their own, which becomes a cipher for personal fragmentation. But while Deportation Blues may have come from that place of great turmoil, it also further magnifies the dynamism and creativity that underpins BC Camplight’s work. Brian Christinzio is definitely here to stay.

Listen to: I’m Desperate, Midnight Ease

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