Camera Obscura (band)

Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura live at Debaser, , Sweden
Background information
Origin	Glasgow, Scotland
Genres	Indie pop
Years active	1996–present
Labels	4AD, Andmoresound, Elefant, Merge
Website	Official website
Members	Tracyanne Campbell Gavin Dunbar Kenny McKeeve Lee Thomson Nigel Baillie (part time)
Past members	Carey Lander (deceased) John Henderson Richard Colburn David Skirving Lindsay Boyd

Camera Obscura are a Scottish indie pop band from Glasgow. The group formed in 1996 and have released five albums to date.

Camera Obscura 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. Their 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.

Camera Obscura's first album, Biggest Bluest Hi Fi, was released in 2001. The album was produced by Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian and was supported by John Peel. The first single from the album, "Eighties Fan", came in at number eight in the Festive Fifty in 2001, and charted in several independent music charts. Nigel Baillie joined the band as a trumpeter and percussionist in 2002 and Carey Lander replaced Boyd. In the summer of 2002, Peel asked the band to do their first Peel session.

The band's second album, Underachievers Please Try Harder, was released in 2003 and was followed by Camera Obscura's first full tour of Great Britain and Ireland and the band's first tour of the United States. Founding member John Henderson left Camera Obscura following this tour. In early 2004 the band recorded the songs "I Love My Jean" and "Red, Red Rose" following their third Peel session, in which Peel had asked them to put these poems by Robert Burns to music.

Camera Obscura recorded their third album, Let's Get Out of This Country, in Sweden over the course of two weeks with producer Jari Haapalainen. The album was released on 6 June 2006. The first single, "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken", is an answer song to Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' song "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?"; it appears during the opening credits of the 2007 film, P.S. I Love You. The title song was featured in episode 5 of Friday Night Lights.