The stories in Paul Auster's classic 1995 film 'Smoke' swirl around magically, like the smoke itself, events emerging slowly from the ether... the music of Philadelphia-based Tara Burke aka Fursaxa is hasheesh cafes or incense-filled church doorways, but the brighter pastoral images evoked by the baroque instrumentation and medieval chanting of her earlier lo-fi homespun psychfolk 4-track recordings are often shrouded in darkness, gothic organ sounds punctuated with whooping primal screams. This free-folk is holy and mystical, the sound of a high priestess inducting her audience into magic, very witchy and esoteric. The interplay of sparse music and backward looped vocals on 2004's 'I See You' from 3rd LP Madrigals in Duo is psychedelia in its purest form, guaranteed to transport you to another space and time, but maybe not the one you'd want to go to...Time marches on and Fursaxa's 7th official release Mycorrhizae Realm (on ATP Recordings) is certainly a departure from Burke's DIY-aesthetic, hopping record labels to suit, self-releasing through her own label Sylph and adding her signature to many compilations; the activity of the last 10 years has led to many fruitful collaborations, culminating in her recent work with Esper's Greg Weeks and The Valerie Project in 2007. Weeks is very much in evidence on Fursaxa's latest offering (production duties), along with 2 other Philadelphia-based members of the psychfolk supergroup, Mary Lattimore (harp and co-writer of 2 songs) and Helena Espvall (cello). Never one to eschew experimentation, Burke probably wasn't exactly dragged kicking and screaming into the recording studio, but Week's gentle coaxing has drawn on some of the brighter and more accessible elements of the Fursaxa oeuvre.'Lunaria Exits the Blue Lodge' leads in with a gorgeous medieval drone, choral chants interwoven with various woodwind and chimes, but this is only a short prologue to 'Poplar Moon', a song built up patiently with simple guitar and cello wrapped in rich classical motif. It almost ends before it begins, but then Lattimore's harp breathes new life into it. It's a clear indication of things to come and Burke's vocal matches the delicacy of the piece. The dark ethereal world music sound continues, as 'Celosia' saunters down an avenue that is surely Six Organs Of Admittance, haunting cello buried in dense medieval drone and wailing vocals, all living happily together, with 80's Lisa Gerrard & Dead Can Dance also in the neighbourhood (chech out their neoclassical phase The Serpent's Egg or Within the Realm of a Dying Sun - yes, something good really did come out of the 80s!). 'Well of Tuhala' revisits fairytale themes, spun out with great atmospheric chants. 'Sunhead Bowed' is also no stranger to Burke's earlier work, the '2-at-a-time' instrumentation drawing inevitable comparisons with Nico's 1969 low rent 'The Marble Index'. 'Charlotte' is a tad more intricate, but peace is shattered when Lattimore drops a discordant arpeggio, quite unnerving but characteristically psychefolk. 'Ode to Goliards' is subdued, but Burke's one-woman's choir continues soundtracking the album as Espvall's cello winds the music down again... the cycle is complete.So Weeks and co. have worked their Espers magic, but has the richer palette developed on Mycorrhizae Realm lost some of the smoke and mystery of Fursaxa's earlier work? Burke has neatly sidestepped some of the denser atmospherics of contemporaries Charalambides and Bardo Pond in favour of a brighter more pastoral sound, something closer to artists like Espers and harpist Joanna Newsom, or even folk veteran Vashti Bunyan who Burke has also worked with recently. Bi-normal herb gardens and crystal sets may still infuse Fursaxa's music, but when the smoke clears, the pop-tinged psych-folk tapestry of Mycorrhizae Realm is a beautiful thing... and still truly "smoking".