While John Grant busied himself with his Creep Show side-project, Bella Union’s supersub Brian Christinzio brilliantly seized his chance. The New Jersey-born, Manchester-resident, Christinzio’s sixth BC Camplight LP presented a litany of trauma – most recently, the end of a long-term relationship – as a kind of tragicomic, self-deprecating musical, its memorable showstoppers delivered by an unreliable narrator in a Kermit onesie who could claim, audaciously, that It Never Rains In Manchester.
A baroque pop auteur who fit snugly into a triumvirate with labelmates John Grant and Father John Misty, Brian Christinzio also shared their ability to make simultaneously wry, accessible and moving music about personal trauma. His seventh album pivoted on how he was abused in his teens by an adult at summer camp – and how he would speak to that abuser three decades on: “I don’t want to hate anything anymore.”
Memories can be like doors. Most of these mnemonic doors are left wide open, allowing one to go in and out when necessary. However some memory doors have been slammed shut, locked and bolted. A “Don’t Come In” warning sign being affixed like a teenager’s bedroom. Brian Christinzio (known musically as BC Camplight) has many closed doors in his mental bank.
Over the course of his discography, the Manchester-based American has used humour – containing sarcasm and pop culture references – as a distraction from opening the entrances to his demons. Even using this technique when trying to make sense of the recent breakdown of his long term relationship.
“A Sober Conversation” is the 45-year-old’s attempt – rather humanly he fails at times – to tackle his worst problems head on; depression, alcoholism, fear of fatherhood. As well as bravely confessing for the first time that the root of his mental problems is mostly like an incident of childhood abuse.
BC Camplight’s 7th album, as the album title suggests, is essentially a series of awakening conversations. Mostly sung but also can be just spoken. Sometimes the conversations are with a female companion, which is the case on ‘Two Legged Dog’ (The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris) and ‘Bubbles In The Gasoline’ (Peaness’s Jessica Branney). Such is his mental state, the conversations are also with imagined characters or imagined situations; whether taking place at present time or reciting them as if they happened in the past. Ultimately, he is unleashing his deep dark thoughts to the listener but in the kind of indirect way that a shy person who avoids eye contact or constantly dresses up in a persona would chat.
The Fat Angel Sings 