Dancing slowly into view with grace and poise, Chrysanths’ debut album Leave No Shadow feels like a major work from the start. A deep, technicolour world landscaped by multi-instrumentalist Emily Scott, Leave No Shadow evokes the immediacy of the moment, the richness of the senses, the flow and drama of existence. Intersecting with her fluid piano playing, Scott weaves complex string arrangements that invite in her effortless vocal performances. It’s the sound of a unique artist finding their voice.

Recorded in Scotland with Emily Scott firmly in the producer’s chair, Leave No Shadow finds the artist flowering in new territory from that associated with her band, Glasgow-based Modern Studies. The most distinctive sonic elements here are the swirling, enveloping string arrangements written by Scott. With Susan Bear’s thoughtful bass guitar and Owen Curtis Williams’s delicate drums, the album takes on a luxurious timbre reminiscent of Jean Claude Vannier’s late 60s studio work or the evocative world-building of Fontana-era Scott Walker.

At the centre of each track, Scott’s songwriting is simultaneously elegiac and celebratory. Though classically trained on the double bass, Scott’s string work is instinctive and natural; whilst informed by romantic composers like Debussy or Bartók, they feel novel and full of wonder. At times the strings paint in widescreen or switch to become hyper-focused on small details, they often rise into almost unbearable tension before cresting and falling in pure aural pleasure. Accompanying herself on piano, each song is powered by an internal drama that is linear, with the narratives stretching out, delivered with aplomb and reflection. The melting violins and sweeping wall of strings throughout Leave No Shadow recall Puccini’s romantic, painterly string elegies (not least his 1890 work Cristantemi - Chrsyanthemums) but there’s an unmistakable feeling of an artist in full flow, fully immersed in their vision and its unfolding. Scott may be immersed in Chrysanths’ world but it’s a world with a door open to the listener, a door to a secret garden full of small miracles.

Written between 2020-22, Leave No Shadow finds Scott revelling in insularity, zooming in on the small details of her home and immediate environment, spinning universes of sound that feel like they erupt from every moment. Although Chrysanths’ compositions and timbres are sometimes mournful, they’re infused with colour and bold shifts in tone that often provoke joy. The introspection of the writing invites the listener into Chrysanth’s private world, a flowering imagination full of the immediacy of the senses.

First track Snow’s exquisite use of the stereofield feels lush and deep, recalling Scott Walker’s It’s Raining Today or Kate Bush circa The Sensual World. The cascading piano figure feels like the lightest snowflakes falling in flurries. On Rising, the tone is darker, moon-lit and crystalline with a lurching drum pattern that Scott’s vocal sweeps on top of with intricate string arrangements delicious in their dramatic tension. The effect recalls Nick Cave’s sense of the macabre but the clear delight Scott is taking in the creative process shines through the darkness. On album centrepiece Stones, the drums, piano and vocal push the strings into a supporting role, with Scott’s intoning of “Leave no shadow at all,” and descriptions of floating in space. The narrator is flying upward into the sun, an Icarus pirouetting into the light, leaving neither shadow nor trace of themselves back on Earth. OnBlinds, there’s an inherent dread in the changes, a wintery creep that resolves into major key before leaping out into darkness. The bedrock of strings and chromatic runs on piano recall the mid-70s work of Alice Coltrane although, without a distracting mysticism, Chrysanth’s music feels rooted in the here and now, in the innate drama of one moment bleeding into the next.

Chrysanths, or Chrysanthemums, are traditionally considered flowers of death and mourning in the west. While there is an embedded sadness in Emily Scott’s work on Leave No Shadow, the complexity and deft touch employed by the musician also points to renewal. In tarot, Death teaches one to outgrow ways of life, points to personal growth and rebirth. Death also teaches us to celebrate the now, to focus on the present and to celebrate life. Leave No Shadow embodies these sentiments, reflecting on the small treasures we move amongst. Chrysanths' fluid storytelling unlocks wave upon wave of emotion and aural joy: Sometimes fierce, often gentle, always here and always now