ISOBEL CAMPBELL

Ambient folk as only the former cellist of Belle & Sebastian could do - listening to this is akin to dropping into a phantasmagoric cartoon a la 'Midnight Gospel', tune in and you'll be riding a rainbow slide of francophone soft psychedelia through chirpy little clouds in no time.

Isobel Campbell is no stranger to navigating turmoil; On her previous album, 'There Is No Other' (2020), she re-emerged after a decade of label trouble with a gem of subtly questing psychedelic folk. Four years on, Campbell spreads her net wider on 'Bow to Love', a soft-spun yet sharp-edged set of reflections on modern crises that doesn’t stop at diagnosing the problems: it goes further to ask how we might progress from our tense, conflicted times. With all the dexterity the Glasgow-born singer-songwriter and cellist is known for, the result is an album of lambent surfaces and choppy riptides, a deeply personal record for today poised between hope and despair. “The album is about what we’re all in right now, and my response to that and my life as a microcosm within that,” says Campbell, before suggesting how exposing modern horrors might prove purgative. “I think there’s a quote from A Course In Miracles which says, ‘Love brings up everything unlike itself for the purpose of healing and release.’ Maybe these horrible things are coming up and out so we can get rid of them and things can be better.”