The acoustic revolution sweeping through British music couldn't have come at a better time for singer Lou Rhodes.

After a decade fronting million-selling drum 'n' bass outfit Lamb, she'd reached a crossroads in her life in 2004 from which she figured the only way forward was a clean break with the past.

Splitting up with both her long-time musical collaborator Andy Barlow and the father of her two children, she swapped a comfortable four-bedroom house in London for a camper van, in which travelled around with her young sons.

Her journey of self-discovery led her to Ridge Farm in Surrey, a commune set in 13 acres of land near Dorking, where she went back to her "hippie roots".

She also began writing songs again, but this time without the frantic breakbeats that had dominated Lamb songs such as Cotton Wool, Gabriel and Gorecki. The lovely, wide-eyed acoustic folk of Beloved One, her new album on her own label Infinite Bloom, is the result.

Judging by the critical reaction, it's been a smart move. The Guardian called it "stunning" while Mojo praised its "cathartic, delicate, beautiful songs of substance" and Uncut compared it to "a pastoral Kate Bush"; Lou herself, though, feels the songs on Beloved One are more of a logical progression from her old work than than a startling reinvention.

"I can imagine that for people listening to it, it seems a real departure, " she says, "but what I was doing in Lamb was a fusion of two forces.

What I was bringing was essentially what I doing with my own album.

Doing it acoustically has given me a whole different freedom."

She admits to some trepidation about "how people who were really into Lamb would take it; we had quite a faithful following who could be quite bossy", but has found even they have warmed to a record whose mellow mood is more representative of her current lifestyle than the conflict-ridden style of her old group.

"Lamb had been an absolute joy but there was push and pull between myself and Andy Barlow, " she says.

"I got to the stage where I felt ready to do something from my own heart, something unadulterated."

The process of composing her new songs had been therapeutic, Lou adds. "Writing has always been like that for me. It's an incredibly cathartic process. I've got the feeling that this is the only way to write songs; I can't write songs that are detached from my deeper emotions.

"But also it's good because you can express things in a way in songs that you can't on a day-to-day level. At the same time as being very personal, it's also universal."

In the tranquil surroundings of Ridge Farm, Lou, 41, seems to have found the perfect base.

"It's just a great place to be. We live in acres of countryside, we've got vegetable gardens and chickens. I look out on birds and a treehouse.

"It's just an incredibly inspiring place to be. I wake up in the morning and look out on the beauty of it and know that I can't go back to living in London. I'd been dying to get out of there for quite a while before I made the move.

"It's also quite a challenging place to be, in that we are a community of people who live together and cook together. We have weekly meetings to ensure people's needs are met. It's great for my kids because they get to run around in nature and it's safe here and away from pollution and most dangers."

All this new-found harmony is also a welcome change from the frequent rows in Lamb.

"I came to a point where I thought, 'I don't want to do this anymore', " she says. "For me in my life that seems to be a natural way that I go through things. When Lamb got together I was looking for that conflict because creatively it worked, but I think I've just stepped into a different phase of my life where I don't want the conflict anymore. I feel like I'm in a period of life where I just want things to flow."

It seems she's not alone - at a recent concert as part of BBC4's Folk Britannia series at the Barbican in London, she met a number of kindred spirits.

"I had a fantastic time. It was amazing being part of that, all these wonderful women from all walks of life.

That wasn't a competitive element between us, everyone was really supportive. It was just an honour to be involved.

"My mum was a folk singer and I grew up going to folk clubs. Martin Carthy and Ewan MacColl were legendary and here I was getting to play with both of Ewan MacColl's sons and Martin Carthy and his daughter Eliza and wife Norma Waterson, it was amazing. I felt like it was such a blessing to be there."

Next month Lou returns to Leeds, a city of which she has "some very good memories" - it was, after all, where she and Andy Barlow made their first recordings "in a studio down by the brewery". Early single God Bless was written there after Lou gave up a career in fashion photography to link up with the then 21-yearold studio engineer.

She's also lining up further releases for her fledgling label Infinite Bloom.

"There's Oddur Runarsson, who played guitar with Lamb, he's in the final stages of recording his album. I'm hoping it might be out in the spring but I might be wrong. We've got no deadlines.

It's one of the joys of going with the flow.

"That's another really exciting thing for me, I love being able to support other acts coming up.

There seems to be so much other good music coming up at the moment. There was a time when I would be looking back for influences but I've bought so many records lately. It's such an exciting time for acoustic music.

It's exciting for me to help promote that - Infinite Bloom gives me that outlet."