Isobel Campbell: Amorino

BEFORE HER AMICABLE SPLIT with Belle & Sebastian in 2002, cellist-vocalist Isobel Campbell recorded two albums with her side project, The Gentle Waves. Amorino, her first true solo album, is the kind of record you fall hard and fast for. Campbell's beautiful whispers grace the inventive songs, along with simple, poetic lyrics that explore the intense ups, downs, joys and sorrows of love, providing a common thread that ties the musically eclectic album together. She slides in and out of moods, sounds, styles and textures with a delicate ease. There's swingin' '60s psychedlic folk-pop, heavy on baroque and classical influences; Bossa Nova-inspired indie jazz-pop with an experimental bent; Spanish-flavored trumpet flourishes and faint, galloping percussion.