Ballad of the Broken Seas is an album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 released by Isobel Campbell

Isobel Campbell

Isobel Campbell is a Scottish singer, cellist and composer in the indie and rock genres.-History:Campbell was a member of Belle & Sebastian from their formation in Glasgow in 1996 until 2002, when she departed the band for personal reasons. She played cello and keyboards with the band, and sang...

 and the first collaboration between her and Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan is an American rock musician and songwriter. Lanegan began his music career in the 1980s, forming the grunge group Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band Lanegan would start a low-key solo career...

. It made the shortlist for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize and was one of NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

's top one hundred albums of the decade.

The Mercury nomination provoked some criticism, as collaborator Mark Lanegan is American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and the award is for British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Irish

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

 artists only. However Campbell wrote most of the tracks and self-produced the album. Campbell had written the music and some of the lyrics, before sending it to Lanegan.

Track listing

All songs written by Isobel Campbell except where stated

1. "Deus Ibi Est" – 2:51
2. "Black Mountain" – 3:10 (music based in part on the traditional melody "Scarborough Fair
   Scarborough Fair
   "Scarborough Fair" is a traditional ballad of the United Kingdom.The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she...
   
   ")
3. "The False Husband" – 3:53
4. "Ballad of the Broken Seas" – 2:42
5. "Revolver" – 2:40 (Mark Lanegan)
6. "Ramblin' Man" – 3:29 (Hank Williams)
7. "(Do You Wanna) Come Walk with Me?" – 3:27
8. "Saturday's Gone" – 4:37
9. "It's Hard to Kill a Bad Thing" – 2:53 (Jim McCulloch)
10. "Honey Child What Can I Do?" – 3:44 (Campbell/Shaw)
11. "Dusty Wreath" – 3:44
12. "The Circus Is Leaving Town" – 5:35

Personnel

• Mark Lanegan
  Mark Lanegan
  Mark Lanegan is an American rock musician and songwriter. Lanegan began his music career in the 1980s, forming the grunge group Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band Lanegan would start a low-key solo career...
  
   - vocals
• Isobel Campbell
  Isobel Campbell
  Isobel Campbell is a Scottish singer, cellist and composer in the indie and rock genres.-History:Campbell was a member of Belle & Sebastian from their formation in Glasgow in 1996 until 2002, when she departed the band for personal reasons. She played cello and keyboards with the band, and sang...
  
   - vocals, piano, cello, harpsichord, tubular bells, glockenspiel
• Alyn Cosker - drums
• Jim McCulloch - guitars
• Ross Hamilton - double bass (1,6-8), bass guitar (4,10,12)
• David Robertson - bodhran (1), percussion (8), congas (9)
• Bill Wells - bass guitar (2,3), piano (4), vibraphone (8)
• John McCusker
  John McCusker
  John McCusker is a Scottish folk musician, record producer and composer. An accomplished fiddle player, he had a long association as a member of the Battlefield Band beginning in the 1990s and was later a band member and producer for folk singer Kate Rusby...
  
   - solo violin (4)
• Joshua Blanchard - acoustic guitar (5)
• Eddi Nappi - bass guitar (5)
• Norm Block - drums (5)
• Geoff Allen - whip (6)
• Claire Campbell - violin (8)
• Helen Thompson - harp (10)
• Chris Geddes
  Chris Geddes
  Chris Geddes is the keyboardist for and a founding member of the Scottish indie pop band Belle & Sebastian. He is a Communist and a vegetarian, the latter earning him the nickname of "Beans". He attended the University of Glasgow and regularly visits Tchai-Ovna Southside. He also likes going to...
  
  - Hammond organ (12)
• Paul Leonard Morgan - string arrangements (3-5,9-10)