The first problem with Summer Camp is the name. A wealth of associations are brought forth before you've even got to the music; beaches, long summer days, childhood, kitsch, washed-out guitar-based pop; to me the name betokens Best Coast, Beach House, etc.

This isn't too wide of the mark; Summer Camp's music is certainly "washed-out", with faded female vocals, a loose bass, sparse synths. I feel like I've stumbled across this too late; my ears are telling me that it's still summer, but the weather begs to differ.

I've been reading Jameson and Baudrillard for my MA, and it strikes me that bands such as Summer Camp do both reaffirm and challenge what we might think of as "postmodern" culture. Whilst they seem to be exhibiting forms of "pastiche" as Jameson terms it - a recycling of the forms of the past, albeit without the knowingness of satire, a kind of "blank parody" - I don't feel that contemporary music scene has nothing to offer. This is where bands like Summer Camp approach Baudrillard's idea of the simulacra; it's the 60s summer as seen from the 21st century, referencing not the 60s themselves but nostaligic visions of the 60s. We've had a spate of these bands recently, and I feel they're taking a very modern aesthetic whilst ostensibly dressing it in the trappings of 1960s pop.

But that's not to say that it's not enjoyable; every generation needs its own 1960s. I wasn't there - I don't remember it - so this is my version to appropriate and call my own. And, to be fair, they are actually quite good.

Summer Camp: Round the Moon

: Ghost