Isobel Campbell – Milkwhite Sheets
Isobel Campbell’s voice is just the thing for Ye Olde English folk, which explains why she’d open with “O Love Is Teasin'”, a haunting traditional tune casting her delicate, well-mannered wisp of a voice against a gently plucked acoustic. Elsewhere, she tackles the Scottish traditional “Hori Horo” and her own “Beggar, Wiseman Or Thief” in a similar stripped-down fashion, going boldly a cappella on another traditional number, “Loving Hannah”.
But as gorgeous as those tracks may be, it’s nice to hear the female lead of those earliest Belle & Sebastian records flesh it out a bit on “Willow’s Song”, which builds a mesmerizing wall of sound around her melancholy vocals using flute, recorder, banjo, mandolin, melodica and cello. It’s also one of only three tracks here with drums, another being “Are You Going To Leave Me?”, which brings the psychedelic folk like George Harrison hanging with Donovan in Rishikesh while waiting for the Maharishi to come back from Mia Farrow’s room.
Other highlights range from “Yearning”, an original that underscores the ache in Campbell’s voice with some really sad cello, to “Cachel Wood”, a ballad written in the style of the traditionals she’s chosen, her melody sweetened by the harmonies of Margaret Smith. The album also features three string-driven instrumentals, the best of which is the intensely emotional “Over The Wheat And The Barley”, on which it sounds like the cello is actually furrowing its brow.