Secret Meeting score: 78
by Dave Bertram
Three years after releasing How to Die in the North, troubled singer songwriter Brian Christinzio is back under the BC Camplight moniker with new record Deportation Blues- his second for Bella Union.
The title doesn’t leave much to the imagination. It’s been the best part of a decade since he lost his deal with One Little Indian, after which he succumbed to drink and drug problems and found himself battling depression while living in a disused church in Philadelphia. But in a final bid to save himself, he made a compulsive move to Manchester in 2012 and, in an interview twelve months later, he confessed that the city ‘saved his life’. Christinzio made Oldham Street his home and recruited a band, but in 2015 felt the full force of the then home secretary’s hard and fast immigration policy just days after releasing How to Die in the North.
Despite obtaining Italian citizenship since and eventually finding his way back, the episode clearly had a lasting impact on somebody who’s suffered such personal strife. Self-produced and recorded in Liverpool’s Whitewood Studios, this record wears those feelings badged on its metaphorical sleeve, sitting the listener on a knife-edge and offering a peephole into the angst, pain, stress and turbulence of relocation, placelessness and a clamouring for belonging.
Where the previous record was perhaps a tad faint and whimsical in places, Deportation Blues is darker, bolder, broad-shouldered and more direct than its predecessor and leans far heavier on electronic influences. Lead track Deportation Blues and I’m Desperate embody this shift to the full – both tracks built on off-kilter chord and rhythmic changes that produce an almost deranged feel. The former is drenched in stress and the bending single synth line feels like the horizon wobbling.
But what this record has in swathes is uncompromising originality. His previous work has brought together a melting pot of influences from across the spectrum, from house music to 50s’ rock and roll. And while this is no different, it feels like a very definitive step forward. Unsurprisingly given the back story, it’s chockful of emotive lyrics with the hooks and shifts crammed in at a breathless pace.
In summary, it’s a record packed with twists and turns and nine tracks that reward you anew with each listen. In an age of dwindling attention spans, it’s refreshing when you come across something as well considered and crafted as this.
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