Summer Camp

In October 2009, U.K. musicians Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey launched the project Summer Camp. Their bright, understated C-86 pop aligned with the lo-fi synth-pop wave then sweeping across the United States under the “chillwave” label. The pair initially hid their identities while uploading a handful of clips that spread rapidly thanks to their use of hazy vintage film excerpts. “Ghost Train” drew on footage from the 1969 X-rated feature Last Summer, and “Round the Moon” repurposed scenes from the 1970s romantic teen drama A Swedish Love Story. Cinematic teen heartbreak remained central: their debut EP also featured tracks named for “Veronica Sawyer,” Winona Ryder’s character in Heathers, and “Jake Ryan,” the crush of Molly Ringwald’s character in Sixteen Candles. Moshi Moshi issued that Young EP in November 2010. Steve Mackey of Pulp co-produced the follow-up LP Welcome to Condale, which Apricot and Moshi Moshi released in late October 2011. The next year the duo toured the U.K. in support, issued the Always EP in July, and devoted the remainder of 2012 to writing material for a third album. Stephen Street, whose credits include the Smiths and Blur, produced 2013’s Summer Camp, the pair’s most refined recording to date. Their next undertaking supplied the soundtrack for Charlie Lyne’s documentary Beyond Clueless, an examination of 1990s teen films—an assignment that felt like a long-held wish fulfilled. The experience proved enriching, broadening their palette to embrace 1990s indie-rock textures and giving them the assurance to self-produce 2015’s Bad Love. Summer Camp resurfaced in 2020 with Romantic Comedy, which also functioned as the soundtrack to Sankey’s first feature-length documentary.