Stephanie Dosen - A Lily For The Spectre (2007)

Dosen's debut starts out like a grand finale - a five-minute, folk-pop epic about love, stars and happiness (This Joy) that's more substantial and uplifting than you might expect from the album title, or from the ethereal woman in the little-girl party dress in the front sleeve photograph (credited to Cat Stevens!). Dosen lives in Nashville and was raised on a peacock farm in Wisconsin, but sounds as if she's from further north, the cool Canadian prairies. There's a dollop of Joni Mitchell on the exquisite, breathy Owl in the Dark. She can also sound like a more hot-blooded Jesse Sykes, a cobwebby Sinéad O'Connor or (on Like a Dream) even a female David Crosby. Whatever: it's a lovely voice and well-served by Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde's production and arrangements - just enough strings to give her melodic, sweetly elegant songs a pop sophistication, not so much that they swamp their charming nu-folk dreaminess.