Four years after their bewitching debut, Jane Weaver’s experimental side-project Fenella have regrouped for the otherworldly The Metallic Index. Their second album finds Weaver, Raz Ullah and Pete Philipson jamming in the Scottish Highlands, inspired by the true story of an eyebrow-raising English psychic from the 1920s. Prog found out more.

Words: Johnny Sharp

Fenella, L-R: Jane Weaver, Pete Philipson and Raz Ullah.

Images: Raz Ullah

Surely there’s a book to be written about the long relationship between progressive music and the paranormal? And when it’s finally penned, Fenella’s latest album deserves a highly honourable mention. The trio, formed by alt-folk-turned-warped-pop songwriter Jane Weaver and her longtime musical lieutenants Pete Philipson and Raz Ullah, have followed 2019’s debut Fehérlófia (itself a bewitching affair, soundtracking a Hungarian fantasy animation from 1981) with The Metallic Index, inspired by the true story of a London woman who apparently had mysterious psychic powers.

It’s a captivating, immersive listen that sounds like it could have been made pretty much at any point in the last 50 years – possibly because the group are not only influenced by vintage ambient electronica, but also had access to a veritable treasure trove of analogue instruments through which to channel the album.

The story it’s inspired by is that of Stella Cranshaw, a nurse whose psychic experiences were uncovered in the 1920s. Pete Philipson takes up the story: “There’s a book called Stella C: An Account Of Some Original Experiments In Psychical Research, by Harry Price, which Jane had read. Price was a magician and ghost hunter; he would try to expose fake mediums, but he also wanted to prove there was something in it. He was on a train and met this girl. She told him, ‘I have these spiritual experiences.’