Camera Obscura releases a new single, “We’re Going to Make It in a Man’s World,” The song is off the band’s forthcoming album Look to the East, Look to the West, available May 3rd on Merge Records. The group, led by guitarist and vocalist Tracyanne Campbell, have reunited with Jari Haapalainen, producer of the band’s 2006 album Let’s Get Out of This Country and 2009’s My Maudlin Career.

“We’re Going to Make It in a Man’s World” was co-written with keyboardist Donna Maciocia for filmmaker Margaret Salmon’s 2021 film Icarus (After Amelia). (Salmon, in turn, shot Look to the East, Look to the West’s cover photography featuring Fiona Morrison, who was on the cover of Camera Obscura’s debut, Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi). Ironic and sincere, the two navigate the reality of being women in the music industry, somehow floating over Tim Davidson’s pedal steel and Maciocia’s keys. “This is a co-write with Donna, one of the first of many songs we have since written together,” says Campbell. “It is a bit tongue-in-cheek with a serious message at its core. As middle-aged women in the music industry, are we relevant? Who is interested in us? Where’s our place in an industry where women are so underrepresented?”

Look to the East, Look to the West was the most hard-fought album of Camera Obscura’s career. Following the 2015 passing of founding keyboardist and friend Carey Lander, the band went into an extended hiatus. They remained in contact, but their status was uncertain until they announced their return, having been invited to perform as part of Belle & Sebastian’s 2019 Boaty Weekender cruise festival, along with a pair of sold-out warm-up shows in Glasgow. Donna Maciocia (keys and vocals) joined founding members Kenny McKeeve (guitar and vocals), Gavin Dunbar (bass), and Lee Thomson (drums and percussion) for those shows and has since become a regular songwriting partner of Campbell’s.

pre-order Look to the East, Look to the West HERE