Two related truths about pop musicians: give them long enough and they'll all make an album with bowed instruments. You just wait, ten years from now, Marilyn Manson will either be dead, a Born Again Christian minister or recording a wimpier album with Kronos Quartet.

Kate St. John, on the other hand, was weaned on the orchestral world. Her work on woodwinds has earned her slots on albums by the Dream Academy and Van Morrison (to name just two). Yeah, she was a sessions musician, but her second solo album shows that she's more than just sessions material.

St. John's wispy vocals tiptoe around a simmering chamber orchestra throughout Second Sight. There's a lot of French in her vocal style (her song "J'attendrai" is actually sung entirely in French)-- her somber naivete makes her sound like her mind was made up about love a long time ago, but that she's just now getting around to telling everyone about it. It's spare and pretty, rather than precious or lush like many pop singers have accidentally reduced chamber arrangements to.

Because of her background, St. John's arrangements-- from the romantic duet "My Lonely Love" to the morose ballad "Fireworks"-- never sound thrown together. These aren't songs written on a guitar and made to fit in an orchestral environment; they're chamber songs that happen to fit in pop shrinkwrap. Though sometimes the lack of a pop foundation makes you feel like you should be wearing a tux, Second Sight is a piece of upper crust entertainment that avoids pomposity and goes straight for songmanship.

-Shan Fowler