Belle & Sebastian founder member Isobel Campbell returns with her fifth solo album, There Is No Other. The record will be her first solo effort since 2006’s Milkwhite Sheets, and first album of any kind since her most recent Mark Lanegan collaboration, Hawk, in 2010. It wasn’t meant to be this way with the album recorded five years ago but held in a rights/legal limbo after the closure of her former label. “It felt like I’d retired,” she says. “Or I was in prison. To be told I could not release the record completely broke me and I started questioning everything, feeling very reluctant and shying away from everything. But if you’re lucky to live long enough, there are always going to be peaks and troughs.” Time to welcome her back with open arms and loving ears.
Liberty Hall, Saturday February 1, €22
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