All Things Light by Cam
'All Things Light' by Cam
Camaron Ochs (Cam) has written for Sam Smith and Beyoncé, and her producers and collaborators include Tyler Johnson and Ethan Gruska, who have worked with Harry Styles and Phoebe Bridgers, respectively. Her largely easy cross-pollination of pop and Americana shines through again on her third major-label album, All Things Light.
That title could refer to feeling tone as much as it does to illumination, because Cam prefers a gentle touch. As a singer, she’s closer to Rickie Lee Jones and Kacey Musgraves than to Carrie Underwood and Lainey Wilson; she does not push for extra drama or show off her pipes.
Drama and emotion are still there, emerging slowly rather than leaping out explosively: “Hallelujah” feels haunted by spectral, stretchy synthesizers as Cam reaches out from within an absence of faith, “Everblue” wills bounce into its sharply strummed steps while Cam coos across an expanse of downbeat feelings, and “Look at the Pretty Girls!” combines electronics and fat bass into a two-step Cam blithely follows.
Her gentleness also allows spirituality to shimmer into focus on several of these songs. “Turns Out That I Am God” starts the album with guitars brought close enough to the forefront that fingers can be heard sliding on strings, and Cam breathes larger as she goes along, as she realizes that she contains the divine.
With a more deliberately Southwestern feel, she soars through “Canyon” as if the song’s main rhythm—drawn from Bert Kaempfert and Helmut Bruesewitz‘s 1964 composition “Mambo Mania”—belongs to her now. And “Kill the Guru!” throws a big-tent revival complete with rockabilly seduction and pomaded cultism.
The whimsical ukulele and whistling of “Slow Down” bring about a sense of inner peace, perhaps by the campfire. On All Things Light, Cam wields her pop savvy like a glowing lantern amid the darker places of old-time country music.
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Buy All Things Light on Amazon here.
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