Campfires - Fare Trax
Campfires - Fare Trax
“Fare Trax” is a new album by Portland Oregon based Campfires. The last one, “Tomorrow, Tomorrow”, came out about 6 years ago, also on Fire Talk. During those 5 years Campfires existed as a live band, watched seasons pass and eventually Jeff and his wife had a baby daughter named Lucy, named after “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. He wrote a song for her while she was still in the womb. Unsurprisingly, that one is called “Lucy’s Song”, and is the last song on this album. Recorded on the Oregon coast a few months ago in a house overlooking the sea and finished in Portland in a practice space that shares a wall with some local favorites, so you can hear Lithics practicing as “Grand Central Song” fades out. The record is an amalgamation of influences, the Kinks are in there and early Byrds with the aesthetics of raw 60s garage and early 80s punk or anorak pop like Television Personalities & stuff from Sarah Records. Some of the poppier Velvets tunes are a touchstone too, then there’s ambient music and experimental tape work. A guazey take on folk music, refined and perfected over 10 years, it’s tenderness is complimented by honest and sincere songwriting presented in all it’s ramshackle glory.
Limited to just 300 copies on Black Vinyl.
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With Dark Tea, Gary emerges years later as a scientist does from her lab, having cracked the formula. The formula? Honor the listeners’ desire for both danger and comfort. And so, when a melody starts to wander from the marked trail, Gary soothes the listener’s ear with a simple one-four (“Variable Reward”). And so, when ambling verse figure disorients the listener, it repeats until she feels at home in it (“The Bird’s Nest”). And so, a long verse finds punctuation in a tastefully punchy chorus (“No Notifications”). The album also contains no fewer than three truly great guitar solos, including one from Meg Duffy’s Hand Habits on “Rollin’ Back The Dial”.
In closing, I offer three exemplary lyrics from the record to demonstrate that Gary has surveyed the mountain of good taste, climbed it, and now sinks the Dark Tea flag into its peak.
-forward by Andrew Cedermark
Mixed by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods), mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control).
1st Pressing
300 Black VInyl
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250 Transparent Pale Blue
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1st Pressing
200 Translucent Purple Vinyl
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