KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * *
You might wonder how half a drum'n'bass duo wound up making music at a 17th-century rural retreat. But ex-Lamb singer Lou Rhodes, photographed on the back of her first solo album plucking her guitar in a rustic-looking kitchen, has her ways.
Her songs are based on gently undulating loops of guitar - not unlike loops of another kind - that resonate as though they were recorded in the draughty backyard barn. And the strings and double bass? Let's just pretend that's Farmer Joe's folk next door.
Rhodes' breathy voice is as beguiling as ever but she sounds less like a little girl lost and more like an earth mother lost, trying to decipher life on a deeper level, post-Lamb.
"I'm not the girl I used to be," she sings on Save Me, a song that, as does Why, captures the loneliness and self-obsession of falling out of love, and a few airy-fairy musings in between. Few singers can get away with the line, "A wise man said to me ... " (Each Moment New) without sounding like a troubled hippy.
But there's a soothing beauty to Tremble, No Re-Run and Inlakesh that make this worth getting out of the rat race for.
Label: Infinite Bloom
Verdict: Former Lamb becomes one with the, um, lambs
