Petra Jean Phillipson, Notes On: Death

Arriving six years after her debut album, Notes On: Love, U.K. singer-songwriter Petra Jean Phillipson’s second offering is an equally sombre, portentous and ambitious affair. A porcelain-skinned siren, Phillipson majors in a strain of ethereal, transcendent gothic folk music that is as indebted to Joni Mitchell as it is to Joanna Newsom. She delivers Notes On: Death on two CDs – labelled, with a slightly schoolgirl-ish pretentiousness, “Noir” and “Blanc” – both of which boast moments of rare musical alchemy amidst some lesser-developed material.

Throughout, Phillipson shows herself admirably unafraid to play the gothic diva, affecting early PJ Harvey-like vocals from the abyss on the jagged art-rock of “City of Lost Angels” and “Ice In June,” while “Pyrite” evokes the gorgeous, stately freak-folk of CocoRosie. Elsewhere, the harp-decorated “Imaginary Gentle Place” is the kind of lovely trifle Björk might have knocked out as a B-side circa Medùlla; “And Lilith Said Unto Adam” could be an (even more) po-faced Bat For Lashes, and the tremulous, ingenuous “All At Sea” suggests Edgar Allan Poe channelled by Kate Bush. As this engagingly solemn album concludes with the Wildbirds & Peacedrums-like litany Ask The Gods To Pull Down The Sky it is impossible not to applaud Petra Jean Phillipson’s vision; even when not everything works, she remains a singularly devoted artist, one who is patently allergic to compromise.