BC Camplight – The Last Rotation of Earth

Brian Christinzio has been a writer reborn since, on a whim, he swapped Philadelphia for Manchester a decade ago, an act of desperation intended to put clear blue water between himself and the self-destructive tendencies that were engulfing him in his hometown. He’s found plenty more strife waiting for him on the other side of the pond since, but has always found a way to mine it for material, with his experiences of mental illness, deportation and loss coming to inform his Manchester Trilogy of How to Die in the North, Deportation Blues and Shortly After Takeoff.

Now, heartbreak has entered the picture; just 18 months after a triumphant adopted hometown show at Manchester’s Ritz that saw a crown-wearing Christinzio strut across the stage covering Prefab Sprout’s The King of Rock 'N' Roll, The Last Rotation of Earth sees him dethroned, rambling around Manchester in a haze after the collapse of a long-term relationship. He works his way through the pain in highly idiosyncratic fashion, exchanging niceties with a concerned Tesco cashier on the title track, chronicling the mundanities of the split on She’s Gone Cold, and uproariously finding gallows humour in it on the epic, sweeping The Movie ('Couldn’t you have done this three weeks ago? / Before I spent a million pounds on your air fryer?')

There is nobody quite like Christinzio, who finds room for brooding art rock (Fear Life In a Dozen Years), glorious melodramatic balladry (Going Out On a Low Note) and descents into impressionistic weirdness (It Never Rains In Manchester). His lyrics, meanwhile, imbue resounding sadness with rapier wit. On Twitter, Christinzio has repeatedly suggested this might be his last album. Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde is on the record as saying he wants to release Christinzio’s music forever. On the basis of The Last Rotation of Earth, pray that the former Cocteau Twin gets his way.

Listen to: The Movie, It Never Rains In Manchester, Fear Life In a Dozen Years