There Is No Other

After a prolonged absence and major changes in her life, Isobel Campbell returns with her freest, finest album yet in “There Is No Other”. Thirteen tracks of hook-driven melody across a wide spectrum of subtle, alluring arrangements and moods, from intense to mysterious to carefree, topped by her trademark gorgeous soft-spun voice.

Campbell first emerged as a founder member of indie royalty Belle & Sebastian. Going solo in 1999, she called herself The Gentle Waves for two dream-folk albums before two more expansive records under her own name. But it’s 14 years since her last solo album, and Campbell’s much better known for the trio of albums (2006-2010) of brooding torchy Americana she made with America’s favourite grizzly crooner Mark Lanegan.

Campbell subsequently moved from Glasgow to Los Angeles, married and got down to making “There Is No Other”. But whilst she has fought fiercely to control her own destiny, she’s met resistance from outside forces, most notably the label/legal complications that has held up the album for over three years.

A new label deal for Campbell in 2014 heralded a new beginning and the start of a brilliant adventure after label/legal complications that has held up the album for over three years. Campbell and her husband (studio engineer Chris Szczech) criss-crossed America several times, recording in locations from an insurance office in Syracuse and a wooden cabin in the Catskills to more traditional Mant Studios in LA, mostly on their own but sometimes calling on a few pals: guitarist Jim McCulloch (Soup Dragons) and keyboardist Dave McGowan (Teenage Fanclub), plus Elijah Thomson (Father John Misty, Everest) and multi-instrumentalist Nina Violet (Willy Mason, Evan Dando, Marissa Nadler).

The album is here at last, taking the name “There Is No Other” from an ancient Mayan greeting that Campbell discovered while embracing the art of meditation.