Phildel
Album: The Disappearance of the Girl
Label: Decca
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.phildel.com

Phildel is one of those artists whose music you've probably heard, but were unaware of the origins, having had her songs feature in a number of films and tv series. Unusually, her writing has also been cited as an influence to the visual media, even more unusually that media being comic books, with Mariah Huehner, author of True Blood and Angel reflecting the beautiful gothic running through her work.

Phildel came at music from a strange perspective. During her childhood, her stepfather refused to have music in the house, no cd, no instruments or even a radio. It influenced both the need to snatch access to music when she could get it, primarily at school and an intensity of silence that impacted on her reading, by providing a space for her imagination to expand into, particularly when delving into Celtic folklore.

"Disappearance Of The Girl" is a deep piano lead album, resplendent with accompanying strings and a voice that is, well simply stunning, sitting somewhere between Kate Bush and Tori Amos. That is then fused with very light dance rhythms and ethereal backing vocals, that at times give such a focus on a single note or chord, that you feel stands like a single candle flame flickering by a surrounding darkness, gradually fading into its own shadows.

Perhaps a good way to help describe the place Phildel takes you would be to describe the core of her five piece touring band, two cellos and Irish drums. "Disappearance Of The Girl" is an object lesson in sustained notes and lingering melody, dark and mysterious, never quite sure what is out there lurking in the silence. At times it becomes positively addictive, maybe an aural form of the laudanum that allowed Shelley to find Frankenstein.

It's probably also worth mentioning that Phildel conceives and films her own videos and equally at home working in that visual medium.

Neil King