Eliza Rickman just might be a ghost, or at the very least a medium channeling vibes from days of yore. This is not to say the Escondido-reared chanteuse is only slanging rehashed classics is the vein of Madeleine Peyroux, it’s just that there’s a decidedly old-timey, almost spooky, air to what she’s doing.

Listening to her beatific voice, heavy on soul and emotion, is an experience leaning as much on the theatrical as the musical. Part of that is also roused from her uncanny, rather sparse, instrumentation.

Rickman’s only release, a 6-song gem of an EP titled Gild the Lily, is wholly comprised of her vocals framed by the haunting, downright freaky, sounds of an antique toy piano. The two-octave apparatus, which looks like the one Linus van Pelt lugged around in Peanuts, emanates with a sweet, yet stark timbre clearly separating Rickman from her contemporaries. When she sings over it the result falls somewhere between a rhythmic tribal chant, an old Pinetop Perkins recording and PJ Harvey.

Well worth a listen.