There is always unadulterated glee running through Silent Radio’s suite of luxury offices when a new BC Camplight album is announced. His most recent classic, ‘The Last Rotation of Earth’, was our album of 2023 and the culmination of a run of four records dating back to 2014’s ‘How To Die in the North’ that had set increasingly high standards. Each long player had displayed increasingly sophisticated levels of hyper-melodic magic as if ‘Pet Sounds’ had been produced by a fidgety Phil Spector and been matched to lyrics that combined a laugh out loud quality with an emotional gut punch.
These albums have been accompanied by a compelling backstory: ‘Deportation Blues’ (being sent back to Philadelphia before regaining entry to the UK via an Italian passport) and ‘Shortly After Takeoff’ (the death of his father which triggered a breakdown). After his breakup record ‘The Last Rotation of Earth’, ‘A Sober Conversation’ has an even more traumatic backdrop as whilst it sees Brian Christinzio embracing sobriety, it finds him confronting the childhood trauma of being abused at summer camp by an adult counsellor and reflecting on its subsequent impact on his behaviour.
When his recording career has seen each release gain an increased following and ever more glowing critical praise, trying to follow ‘The Last Rotation of Earth’ is the equivalent of a mountaineer finding something to surpass climbing Everest. How can he scale such heights again? The first 37 seconds of opening track ‘The Tent’ misleadingly suggests that ‘A Sober Conversation’ is going to be a completely different BC Camplight record – creepy atmospherics, the sound of footsteps on leaves and the unzipping of a tent; it could be the introduction to a psychological horror movie. Then the familiar sound of a piano melody asserts itself and Christinzio starts reciting his new health regime; meditation, cutting out caffeine. It must be the first song to mention ashwagandha in its opening line. A flashback to September 1993 sees him back at summer camp, worrying about whether his shoes are cool and pretending to smoke. Increasing levels of echo and harmonies reflect a rising sense of panic while there is an anguish to his delivery of the lines “some people face the music…face the floor, boy.”
‘Two Legged Dog’ is a duet with Abigail Morris of The Last Dinner Party. Its opening sees Christinzio pouring tequila and the fragrance Paco Rabanne over a man. The song deploys the familiar array of Christinzio compositional flourishes; plentiful tempo changes as the song shifts from gentle bossa nova easy listening to echo laden shouts and is so crazily loaded with melodic hooks that he could have been stockpiling them for two years to be unleashed now. Many writers would not manage to construct one in their lifetime that was so memorable while Christinzio becomes the conjuror quickly casting them aside as if saying, “you like this one, wait until you hear this.”
The title track is an absolute masterpiece. Starting with a jaunty piano line, it contains a shedload of lyrical zingers (throwing out his Christmas tree on December 23rd, being chased by John Cleese, confessing to not liking David Bowie, a hairpiece flying off) while acknowledging these are distractions from the need for a sober conversation. Throwing in guitar stabs and the sugar rush of melodic overload, it is quite extraordinary. ‘When I Make My First Million’ is mainly a subdued piano ballad with restrained orchestration, although there are flashes of his characteristic over layering and emphatic repetition. It follows on from ‘Going Out on a Low Note’ from ‘The Last Rotation’ in imagining a future in which he is no longer a financially struggling musician and, on this occasion, can use his riches to buy a friend while pretending to stay humble.
Beginning with classical grand piano, ‘Where You Taking My Baby?’ finds him confronting a man called Michael, now aged 75, about what happened, using the coping strategies learnt through therapy to cast aside hate. It continues the album’s lineage of songs that are exceptionally rich in melody, yet the most poignant part is where he plaintively sings the title to the accompaniment of minimal piano.
Jessica Branney of Peaness shares vocal duties on ‘Bubbles in the Gasoline’ which has B.Bumble & The Stingers toned piano, harmonic richness and is imbued with romance and sadness. As what Christinzio perceives to be a raw version of Frank Sinatra’s ‘In the Wee Small Hours’, ‘Rock Gently in Disorder’ is a mini-song suite covering the gamut from tender restraint to overblown with bleak comic humour thrown in (“Sunday at ten to six / I’m running towards my fix / cocaine and Weetabix.”)
As the album draws to its conclusion, ‘Drunk Talk’ has a simpler, less maximalist structure. While the inane babble of drunken conversation offers a respite from the pursuit of self-improvement, there are the highly pointed lines, “she said she forgot her keys / and goes ‘isn’t it frustrating when you keep losing something?’ / I said ‘honey, you have no idea’.” As has become habitual with recent BC Camplight albums from ‘Shortly After Takeoff’ onwards, it ends with an instrumental, on this occasion ‘Leaving Camp Four Oats’. There is the sound of that tent being zipped back up, footsteps walking away, distant whistling and a calmer wash of synthesiser. It is easy to imagine credits rolling on the latest filmic episode of Christinzio’s life story.
In common with all his recent albums, it is complete within 40 minutes. With its marriage of sensual overload and moments of great simplicity, there is so much going on that anything longer would be overwhelming. It is a virtuoso effort from Christinzio who plays everything apart from drums which are shared between Sidonie Hand-Halford and Adam Dawson while there are cameos from live band members, Jolan Lewis and Thom Bellini. To describe it as brave in its honesty could imply that it listening to it is a chore and that could not be further from the truth. It is leavened with so much melodic depth, humour and flights of fancy that it is a rare pleasure. While it is too soon to state that it is his definitive masterpiece, it is certainly up there. He has reached the summit again and stands proud.
BC Camplight: A Sober Conversation – Out 27 June 2025 (Bella Union)
Camplight – A Sober Conversation (Official Lyric Video)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
