“I’m a bit like a headless chicken at the moment” jokes Isobel Campbell. “I think I’m going to try and get an evil twin. I could send her out to work while I stay at home and watch T.V.”

Assuming the existence of her doppelganger, it appears that the good twin is fielding the questions today. The softly-spoken Scottish vocalist discusses the making of her latest album, Ballad of the Broken Seas, and upcoming Dublin show by way of giggles, good-humoured banter and meandering anecdotes.

Ballad of the Broken Seas, Isobel’s fourth album since her departure from Belle & Sebastian, is a collaboration with Mark Lanegan and was released earlier this month to widespread acclaim. At face value, it could be taken as a hot contender for the ‘most unusual musical pairing’ of the year. Lanegan has towed a significant line through the U.S. rock scene for almost two decades, most notably as lead singer with The Screaming Trees, and more recently with Queens of the Stone Age.

Isobel explains, “It started when we were making the Time is Just the Same EP. The A-side was a duet, and we were thinking about who we could get. I thought it could use someone like Shane Mc Gowan, but my boyfriend at the time told me I should listen to this guy. He played me one of Mark’s tracks, and I heard the voice...” Campbell still sounds amazed that Lanegan agreed to the project at all, “I didn’t even know him and didn’t even know if he’d get back to me, but I sent him half a song and he sent it back finished.”

Geographical distance was the first disparity to be overcome, with Isobel based in Glasgow and Mark in L.A. The pair flouted convention, and decided to continue as they had begun. They recorded their pieces separately, posting completed parts to each other and communicating via e-mail. “I quite liked it”, she says of the unusual process, “It made the project even more exciting. It wasn’t like he lived in Partick and I’d be asking, ‘fancy coming in the studio down the road?’ It made things a bit more international. If we’d been in the studio together we might have had a bust up or something!”

Perhaps not so much the evil twin, Lanegan is nevertheless antithetic to Campbell’s sweetness. While Isobel’s otherworldly voice calls to mind folk sensibilities and angelic purity in equal measure, Lanegan taints with his trademark guttural and jaded delivery. Duets were something that Isobel had planned to experiment with ever since hearing the pairings of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell. However the primary stylistic aim of the project, Isobel says, was to create something ‘timeless’. During recording, she was listening to “mostly Johnny Cash albums like The Man Comes Around, and also some of his older stuff. I was listening to quite a lot of Hank Williams too. I’ve got pretty eclectic taste, but I am a bit of a country fan!”

The hybrid result of this peculiar alliance is a collection of ballad variants, moving from dark and brooding to hauntingly beautiful. Isobel describes the material as ‘love songs’, but believes the inspiration behind the songs is more universal. “I just wanted to tell stories within songs” she says. “I never really try to be too clever with what I do. I mean most people experience being in love at one point or another…some people do it every week! I’m not like one of those little literary boys, wrapped up in scarves and carrying their books around. That’s not really my thing.”

Isobel speaks with similar unaffectedness about another album, Milkwhite Sheets, to which she has recently put finishing touches on. “I’ve been kind of joking with people saying that probably only five people will buy it! It’s not really trying to endear itself to people, put it that way.” She describes the album as “my interpretation of traditional Scottish, Irish and English songs, and a couple of American traditional songs. It’s quite earthy, pagan or primal, I suppose. It’s quite sparse too, a bit of a bleak record really.”

In the midst of such solemnity it’s reassuring to hear that all humour is not lost. Isobel is touring with long-time friend and former Vaselines member, Eugene Kelly, who is standing in for Mark Lanegan. However, she does express some apprehension about playing in Dublin with the band, “Just as long as we all don’t crack up laughing, because it’s been a bit of a problem in rehearsals. It would be really bad for the record because it’s quite sad and serious. It wouldn’t make much sense, us all laughing like lunatics!”

Ballad of the Broken Seas is released on V2 records.

Isobel Campbell plays live in the Sugar Club on February 18th.

Visit www.isobelcampbell.com