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  1. Shadows in Plain Sight(2017) Review
  2. Trent Coston
  3.  
  4. Up and coming pop star Camilla Garcia, front woman and general face of the band Smoketown, has just released her second album, Shadows in Plain Sight, preceded by Who's to Blame(2015) and her solo EP, Gracelessness(2014). Who's to Blame's hit radio single, Heartbreaker in Disguise, rode the top of UK's Top 100 Singles charts for eight weeks after release, propelling the previously unknown star into the public eye. Her band, comprised of Ernest Effweather on percussion, Lily-Anne Thomas on violin, Gracie Landing on piano, and Daniel Crocker on guitar, has enjoyed similar fame, as during Smoketown's downtime between albums they have been invited to play on tracks for other bands such as Crushed Linen Roses, Goodnight Elvira, and Dance!!!.
  5.  
  6. In interviews, Ms.Garcia has come off as energetic, eclectic, and perhaps even bubbly, which could not be further removed from the essence of her musical career. Gracelessness caught attention from critics with it's haunting melodies and cold, isolated feeling, evoking visions of abandoned homes and desolate lives, and earned her the spot in the coveted "New Artists" two page spread in January City's monthly release of the Bastion. This is surely what led to the resounding success of Who's to Blame, which built off of the creeping sound of Gracelessness with a touch of more classic rock as Ms.Garcia admittedly found her anger.
  7.  
  8. [Link to an interview of Camilla with Stephen Rock, host of JC At Night]
  9. [Transcript]
  10. [Stephen] Soooo, Ms.Garcia...this is your first time on the show, isn't that correct?
  11. [Camilla] Oh, yes. It's very exciting, I'm not used to being so in the spotlight!
  12. [Camilla smiles and waves to the audience(and camera), the audience cheering loudly in response]
  13. [Stephen] Well, you certainly have a knack for it...now, I've listened to your new album-
  14. [Camilla] Why, thank you! Did you like it?
  15. [Stephen] Quite a lot, really a fan of that one song...the one they've been playing on every radio station on the hour?
  16. [Camilla] Heartbreaker in Disguise?
  17. [Stephen] Yes, that's it! Good thing too, I have to hear it so much that it'd be a right shame if I didn't like it.
  18. [Stephen] So, I went and listened to your EP, Gracelessness, right good name by the by, and I was surprised! Not that I didn't like it, but the emotional shift between the two was pretty dramatic. What happened in between your solo EP and your first album as Smoketown?
  19. [Camilla] Well, Gracelessness...This is such a heavy subject, I hope I don't drag your viewers down!
  20. [Stephen] Oh, I'm sure your smile will bring them right back up!
  21. [In the background of the video you can see a young man in a striped sweater standing just shy of the curtain cross his arms and glare at Stephen]
  22. [Camilla] Haha, well...Gracelessness was written during a really dark time in my life, I felt really alone and helpless...So, I tried to channel that sadness into something productive, and I just made this sad, sad piece of art. I'm proud of what I accomplished with Gracelessness, what I got out of my system, but listening to it it's pretty clear I was just wallowing in my own misery.
  23. [Camilla] So with Who's to Blame, I tried looking inward, tried to find what else I felt about who I was, what I was doing, where I was in my life. I found a lot of things, Stephen! Things I wasn't really prepared for, honestly, but I knew then that I could turn those feelings into something real...something that I controlled, rather than controlling me.
  24. [Camilla] So Who's to Blame is definitely angrier, definitely more...raw, more raw than Gracelessness. But there's also some really sweet songs on there, some love songs, some songs about being happy again. I met my wonderful boyfriend while I was writing Who's to Blame, just after I put my EP out there, and he really changed the whole feel of the album.
  25. [The camera and spotlight swivel to focus on the young man in the striped sweater, who's eyes widen imperceptibly and he waves uncomfortably to the camera as the audience claps]
  26. [Camilla] Now, what I'm working on now-
  27. [Stephen] Already on to the next project?
  28. [Camilla] No rest for the wicked, Stephen! Got to keep myself on my toes, or else the music'll just stay locked up inside me.
  29. [The video ends there]
  30.  
  31. While Ms.Garcia has only been active in the radio sphere for a few years, she's been doing music for practically her whole life. In another interview she cites her time with a school orchestra changed her outlook on life and what she wanted to do with it, and you can see the influences that experience had on her music. Both in her solo work and with Smoketown, Ms.Garcia avoids electric instruments, and post-production work is kept to an absolute minimum, relying instead on a medley of acoustic instruments and her own voice to keep her work sounding fresh. Fully acoustic bands are few and far between these days, and while Ms.Garcia has said that she doesn't look down on those who use electric instruments and simulated sounds to make their music, it simply doesn't agree with her.
  32.  
  33. [Another video of Camilla]
  34. [Transcript]
  35. [Camilla] Oh, I've heard some wonderful music where they've added all sorts of effects to the voice, and the music sounds all huge and-and booming, and industrial. And I love it quite a bit, I listen to it all the time.
  36. [Camilla] Frankly speaking, haha, I'm just a bit bad at it? I've tried going for that sort of big sound, but it's never quite where I want it to be. So I stick with what I know, which is acoustic instruments and my own voice. Easier for everyone that way, y'know? Haha!
  37. [The video ends there]
  38.  
  39. So how does Shadows in Plain Sight stack up against her previous critically acclaimed works? The essence of the sound is still there, with the Smoketown band's eerily precise instrumentation backing up Ms.Garcia's hazy, rasping vocals, but just as Who's to Blame was the result of Ms.Garcia getting in touch with her anger after the miserable loneliness of Gracelessness, Shadows in Plain Sight brings with it a unique emotional feel. While it seems to return somewhat to the somber nature of her solo work, Shadows in Plain Sight seems to have an emotional arc to it - beginning with loneliness and transitioning naturally to a joyful, homey feeling by the final track. Surprisingly enough, Ms.Garcia's aforementioned boyfriend, Kid Addison, features on several of the tracks as backup vocals and even has a lengthy solo on the penultimate track, Creaking Staircase. His deep, full baritone compliments Ms.Garcia's high, smoky voice as they harmonize, and his long solo is reminiscent of an opera solo. In the end, Shadows in Plain Sight is about hope - the lack of it, chasing after it, find it, and finally taking hold of it. In Ms.Garcia's own words, Shadows in Plain Sight is an autobiographical work in a way.
  40.  
  41. [A video of a radio interview of Camilla and Smoketown with Jodie Denburg, a local JC radio DJ]
  42. [Transcript]
  43. [Jodie] So, Ms.Garcia...
  44. [Camilla] You can call me Camilla, or Cammy!
  45. [Jodie] [chuckles] Alright, Camilla. So, you've been on tour for a while now, going across Europe and even a few places in America...
  46. [Camilla] Yeah-can I plug myself, or is that something only others can do for me? [laughs]
  47. [Jodie] Go right ahead.
  48. [Camilla] We just got done playing in Austin, Texas for South by South West, and now that we're back home we're having one last finale concert right here at home in about a week!
  49. [Gracie] March 4th, suckers!
  50. [Ernest] At the Ivanyi Center in downtown January City!
  51. [Gracie] Whoo!
  52. [Camilla] [laughs] That's right! March 4th at 7:00, with an afterparty at Chimera just down the street where we'll all be doing some meet and greet with the fans.
  53. [Daniel] Two drink minimum, y'all.
  54. [Jodie] So this tour, the Sleepless tour is what you're calling it...
  55. [Camilla] Yeah, because we drive and fly all night the whole time.
  56. [Jodie] You've been playing a lot of songs off your upcoming album, Shadows in Plain Sight. What can you tell us about this album, now that it's about to drop in a few days?
  57. [Camilla] Shadows in Plain Sight is really some of my best work as a songwriter and a vocal artist, or at least that's what I've been lead to believe.
  58. [Lily-Anne] "What I've been lead to believe," pssh. So fake-humble.
  59. [Camilla] [laughs] It's short-hand for "my boyfriend won't stop telling me how much he loves it."
  60. [Jodie] Your partner, Kid Addison, he features on the album as a backup vocalist for the first time, doesn't he?
  61. [Camilla] Yes! He also has a solo part on one of the later tracks, Creaking Staircase, which we played live for the first time at South by South West. He was so cute, he was so nervous about going up on stage like that but I think it was a really fulfilling experience for everybody.
  62. [Jodie] People have noted some similarities between your new songs and those on your original EP, Gracelessness. Do you feel like you're returning to that sort of feeling for your work, or...?
  63. [Camilla] Well, the thing is that SIPS-sorry, acronyms! [laughs] Um, well, the album is sort of like...a documentation of my life? Like, recently, at least.
  64. [Camilla] So the first songs are drawing back on those feelings I had when I was writing Gracelessness, like that desperation and isolation that I felt at the time. So the sound is very similar, because I wanted it to evoke that period. It gets happier though! I don't know if you've heard Creaking Staircase, but it's a much more lighthearted song than what people are probably used to from me.
  65. [Jodie] That's another thing, some people who have been following you on tour have commented on how sometimes you feel like a totally different artist with these new songs.
  66. [Camilla] That's intentional...sort of! I don't want to lose what made people interested in me in the first place, but I've grown a lot since I started putting my music out there. My life's changed a lot! I've got this band-
  67. [Ernest, Daniel, Gracie, and Lily-Anne cheer]
  68. [Camilla] [laughs] It was a real learning curve switching from being a solo artist to having these people with me, and having to actually...consult with others about how my music sounds! But it's been so enriching, having them with me all this time on this journey. I couldn't ask for better friends.
  69. [Gracie] Damn straight!
  70. [Camilla] So, I've got this band, Kid's been a darling with me and my musical scene, I'm in a much better mental place than I was a few years ago. I'm just really lucky, and I can't help but transfer that...that optimism, that joy into my artistic expression. I don't want to be known as just "the sad musician," that's not who I want to be.
  71. [Jodie] So this album is like a personal log, detailing your journey from where you were in 2014 to where you are now?
  72. [Camilla] Yeah, it's like a musical biography. A timeline. You can trace it from the first song to the last, like, "here's how I was feeling during this part of my life, but then I was angrier here, and I met my band here," and so on and so on.
  73. [Jodie] As a relatively new artist who's been found by success kind of out of the blue, how does that change the way you've made your music?
  74. [Camilla] Short answer? It doesn't, really. Long answer?
  75. [Jodie] [chuckles] Alright, long answer.
  76. [Camilla] There's was a period where I was really anxious about being in the public eye, before I was just in this kind of underground local scene. I played at some bars, some coffee shops, nothing big. People liked me, but I was just another kid at open mic night. So when the Bastion had me as their up and coming artist to look out for, I kind of panicked with the attention! I started getting emails and texts asking me to play at venues, people wanted to send me criticisms of my EP, some even asked if I needed psychological help! [laughs] I sort of erased myself from the internet while I was working on the songs for what would become Who's to Blame, just so I could stay as sane as I was!
  77. [Jodie] Did it ever affect what kind of content you'd put into your lyrics, the way you constructed your sound?
  78. [Camilla] I really, really considered stuff like that during that period. Like, I'd write down a lyric I'd like a lot, and then a little voice would go, "hey, would the critics like that? Is it good enough, is it too much?" And, I'd just panic about it for a little while until I'd go "screw it, it's my music," y'know? Once I got good at realizing that I didn't owe anybody that kind of change, I stopped thinking those kinds of thoughts.
  79. [Gracie] Don't let her make you think that she's some sort of stone-cold, uncaring badass, or anything. She still comes to US every day like, "do you like this lyric? Do you have any suggestions? Do you think it could be cleaned up? How's this melody here?"
  80. [Daniel] I just play the guitar, man, I can't figure out half the shit she writes...like, I'm always goin', "you're the musician, girl," 'cuz she's always done us damn proud on her own anyway.
  81. [Camilla] Which is funny, because I distinctly remember you fixing Tired Eyes' entire sound before we released Who's to Blame?
  82. [Daniel] Don't know what you're talkin' 'bout.
  83. [Ernest] Dan's an idiot savant, he just doodles some changes in the liner notes on a whim and it turns out that it makes everything better.
  84. [Lily-Anne] One time he drew a hang-man game in the liners for Second Chances and accidentally made Cammy change the whole chorus.
  85. [Daniel] [chuckles]
  86. [Camilla] So, I don't let the public dictate what I make, but I do take my friends and bandmates' opinions and criticisms into account when I'm creating. I think that's what any artist does.
  87. [Jodie] With your partner in on the vocals scene now, what kind of changes has he brought to the dynamic?
  88. [Camilla] Well-
  89. [Daniel] He can drink me under the table, and I'm gettin' defensive of that.
  90. [Lily-Anne] He makes me feel like some sort of music idiot when he pulls out that musical encyclopedia he calls "his brain."
  91. [Gracie] He can't cook and he keeps setting off the fire alarm in our studio when he tries to make us lunch during practice?
  92. [Ernest] He tried drumming once and he broke two sticks because he just started beating the shit out of my set?
  93. [Daniel] Ain't that just drumming?
  94. [Ernest] [laughing] Fuck off, Dan.
  95. [Camilla] So, he's had an impact on the whole band, obviously!
  96. [Gracie] Boy as big as he is, it's hard for him not to have an "impact" when he falls in on you.
  97. [Camilla] Seriously, though. Kid's always been good friends with my band, so he came into the scene itself easily enough. Then, he's got such...as Lily mentioned, he's got this encyclopedic knowledge of music, so he's really knowledgeable on a lot of technical aspects that even I wasn't when I started.
  98. [Daniel] Fuckin' good singer, too. Love his voice.
  99. [Gracie] I hate him so much.
  100. [Daniel] God damn, me too.
  101. [Everybody laughing]
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