A Lily For The Spectre - Stephanie Dosen

According to the blurb at least, Stephanie Dosen's musical talent was first brought to bear when she wrote lullabies for swans and foxes on the peacock farm where she was raised (and that's before we've got to the "Stephanie composed songs for boys at school and now mostly writes for ghosts gone astray"section of the blurb...).

So far, so "kooky" then for the folk songstress. Of course it wasn't the said animals that signed her up to some George Orwell influenced record label, but former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde, who not only signed her up but was heavily involved in creating the musical backdrops for this album.

And it really is something quite special indeed.

Dosen has a positively enchanting voice, both beautiful and poetic, which immediately takes this out of the ordinary scheme of things.

The album isn't without faults; by the time you get to the last, and title track, you're aware that there's nothing too dissimilar to the brilliant opener This Joy and also that there's nothing that quite matches up to the magic of it either. You might also find yourself thinking that Dosen is a little too impossibly sweet and that you can't wait for that third album when she's goes for a darker sound. But the fact that I'm sat here already thinking about what her third album sounds like should tell you all you need to know.

Stephanie Dosen is quite the talent and I hope she's around for many years to come. Even with it's "faults" this is an enchanting album.