Pitchfork

The visionary 12th century theologian, scientist, and composer Hildegard von Bingen once referred to herself and her creations as "a feather on the breath of God." Perhaps it could be said that there are hints of this same celestial guidance at work in the ethereal music of West Philly's Tara Burke, aka Fursaxa. Drawing inspiration from Hildegard's hypnotic medieval plainchants, as well as from a host of other ancient folk and psychedelic traditions, Fursaxa's fourth official full-length Lepidoptera ripples and flutters with an enthralling mantric pulse uniquely its own.

With previous albums released by Acid Mothers Temple and on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace, as well as appearances on such compilations as this year's epochal By the Fruits You Shall Know the Roots, Burke has managed to associate herself with the ongoing free-folk movement. But, as is the case with contemporaries like Charalambides or Tower Recordings, Fursaxa utilizes folk music's essential ingredients-- acoustic guitars, hand percussion, simple, repetitive melodies-- in a such a deeply personalized (and wholly unpredictable) fashion that she's able to construct enchanted new meadows of sound that exist completely beyond any reductive classification.

Centered predominantly upon Burke's multi-tracked, endlessly coiled vocals and the steady hum of vintage keyboards, Fursaxa also bears comparison to Nico's The Marble Index and, especially, to the post-Opal solo work of Kendra Smith. As with those performers, Burke often tends to prefer arrangements that feature their instruments one or two at a time, with tracks like "Russian Snow Queen" carried along solely upon the steady current of a single pump organ and her swirling, wraith-like vocal loops. Despite their humble settings, however, the songs of Lepidoptera attain an astonishing degree of richness and tranquil warmth, possessing a depth of field unheard on earlier Fursaxa releases like 2000's Mandrake.

Throughout the album, Burke's lyrics (such as they may be) remain stubbornly inscrutable, but on tracks like the opening convocation of "Freedom" her cascading, self-replicating harmonies render her actual words superfluous. And on the primitive campfire rounds of "Velada", "Neon Lights", or the expansive, sublime "Poppy Opera", one can't help be transfixed by the way her gently dividing melodies continually circle back on their tails, as Burke uses raised fingers to trace infinity symbols across the constellations, sounding for all the world like that feather carried aloft by unseen hands.