As John Cage understood, there is music even in apparent silence and, as most psychiatrists know, the imagination can thrive even the most reduced circumstances.
This goes someway to explaining how this mature and ambitious debut album came about.
Phildel Hoi Yee Ng's father is from Hong Kong but when, at the age of 8, her Irish mother remarried a religious fundamentalist she was forced to endure, what she refers to in the title track as a decade of "imposed silence".
Her stepfather took the misanthropic maxim that children should be seen and not heard to extremes and forced her to grow up in a household in which music was forbidden.
This experience is central to the defiant spirit and lyrical content of the twelve songs. These are not tentative steps towards finding a voice, but a remarkable collection of what her promoters call "songs of resistance and escape".
Yet the fact that graceful melodies have been picked up by advertising companies also illustrates that these are far from being gloomy laments. Her upbeat tunes have already been used on TV spots to promote Marks & Spencer and the new latest iPad.
There's an airy Celtic dreaminess about Moonsea, while on Beside You she imagines herself as a kind of liberated princess : In my symbolised world, I'm a beautiful girl. This cloying romanticism also appears on Dare ("Your presence preserves me").
But, like a poisoned apple, all is not as sweet and inviting as it first appears.
The barbed lyrics to Mistakes ("I need you like I need a headache") and Afraid of the Dark ("Holding you close, feels like a cut throat, losing blood") are not the words of someone prepared to let bygones be bygones.
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The darkest of the songs is without doubt Holes In Your Coffin where the synthy disco beat cannot neutralise the threatening tone of her words: "If the cross on the door doesn't scare you. And the beast of the moor's gonna spare you. Boy come home to me".
The Bronte-esque (melo)drama of this piece and the epic emotional sweep of the tunes overall mean that comparisons with Kate Bush are both inevitable and, for once, entirely appropriate.
Storm Song and Wolf ("You once said I wish you dead") are two rousing songs in a similar theatrical mould.
Producer Ross Cullum is credited with shaping her vision. The layers of choral backing and stirring string arrangements make a strong statement but sometimes less is more and it would have been nice to hear more songs with sparser voice and piano arrangements. As it is, the big production often seems intent on bludgeoning the listener into submission.
However, you have to admire the sheer boldness of the work which Phildel has also translated into a visual journey by utilising a modest budget to make a video to accompany every song.
The reappearance of the girl would perhaps have made a more fitting title.
Phildel's website
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