After years, Brian Campeau is back! The Australia-based Canadian singer, writer, and multi-instrumentalist stormed my 2018 with his awesome poppy psych-rock sound on Old Dog, New Tricks. Though he dropped a collection of B-sides and demos with Ambience Driver in 2020, it was lacking that keen, purposed theme and concept that Campeau’s come to be known for from project to project. Well, wait no longer, because his new album Brian Campeau Presents Jo Dellin and the Bone Spurs is right around the metaphorical corner, its wagon packed with melancholy and introspection.
Coming out June 27, this new LP sees Brian Campeau shift into a more country and folk modality – not a far cry from his usual indie singer-songwriter foundation – propelled by a number of influences from his mainstays like Beck and Nick Drake to more immediate ones like Angel Olsen, Jimmie Rodgers, and a dash of Hank Williams. Premiering right here and now is the heartrending, though often cheeky music video for his recently release single, “Ruby”, a shining example of what Campeau is capable of:
I’ll be honest, I’m pretty far out of my element with this music. While I’m a big appreciator of folky and even country elements in a lot of my music, to listen to it uncut with anything else is a different story. And yet, it comes natural with Brian Campeau and how he approaches the craft. Even when writing and performing what many consider sad songs, there’s a levity and approachability to it all, and “Ruby” is no different. Campeau’s guitar is fluttery, much like our protagonist’s heart when thinking of the woman that got away, the titular Ruby, depicted as an angel in the song’s video. Piano and violin accent the track so well – Campeau’s yodeling is the least expected thing here, but colors in the song’s atmosphere in a way never done before by him. All these elements help give it an identity all its own within Campeau’s varied, increasingly dense catalog. It’s the sun shining on a dirt road; a rural working-class delight beckoning out to those who have felt the pain of losing someone who once stayed in their arms.
The video is cute – for all its gut punches, the scrappy DIY aesthetic of the video reminds me of the simple animations I did in one of my high school computer classes using Adobe Flash (RIP). Ruby’s shoulder-length hair glows yellow blonde, likely filled by a paint bucket tool, when dreamily soaring over the hills in the sky with wings. The man in the video, modeled after Campeau himself, speedruns an array of emotions from happy and love-struck to heartsick and crestfallen. He does that thing I think we all have done and imagines a worst case scenario with Ruby marrying the man who poached her: a chiseled, hairy-chested, mohawked metalhead (note the badass Slayer writing on his arm) who wore a leather jacket to get hitched, naturally in a place called the Church of Disappointment. I mean, at that point it kind of becomes an omen for divorce, right?
While the video lacks a happy ending, Brian Campeau injects enough energy and attitude into the track and subtle absurdism in the animation that it comes out on top with all smiles, even if it’s a knowing smirk empathizing with the pathos of “Ruby”. If it moved you one way or another like it did me, you should be looking forward to Brian Campeau Presents Jo Dellin and the Bone Spurs, out June 27 via Art As Catharsis. You can follow Campeau on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to swing by his Bandcamp to preorder the album and get hip to his previous stuff to see the growth over time.
Artist photo by Huw Rogers
