Fallen Camellias

On Fallen Camelias, the trio of Painting Petals On Planet Ghost — Ramona Ponzini, with the Opalio brothers from My Cat Is An Alien — play it simple: repetitive guitar phrases that spin around a handful of notes; gentle droplets of keyboards; the occasional blast of fuzzed-out noise. Ponzini’s voice hovers above everything, using Yosano Akiko’s early-20th-century Japanese poetry as lyrical sources, and delivering her lines unaffectedly, in a becalmed hush. You can trace some through-lines to other musicians who have explored similar territory — Hisato Higuchi, in particular, and perhaps some elements of Loren Connors & Suzanne Langille’s collaborations — but Fallen Camelias is its own thing. Despite its surface quiet, it’s a tense, and sometimes intense, listen, even as the collective focus of the trio is imperturbable.