Ask a musician about the source of her inspiration and see where it gets you. The usual response to this vaguest of journalistic in-quiries is a long pause and a spree of awkward mumbling fol-lowed by a rushed allusion to some arcane inner drive. And then there's Australian chanteuse Tania May-Bowers, who takes about a second before explaining: "The first place I recorded this album was in a house overlooking a beach. Everywhere there was huge glass, and wherever you played, you saw the sea."

Not the most concrete answer at first, especially considering that Tania's debut, under the name Via Tania, hardly abounds in maritime references. Only after listening closely to the record, titled ‘Under a Different Sky,’ do things begin to slide into place. Anchored by deep bass swells and buoyed by crests of rolling guitar and Tania's smoke--and-mirror vocals, Sky's songs evoke all the majestic sweep and mysterious depths of the ocean that surrounds her island continent. Via Tania's music mimics the sea as well, taking a complex approach that blends the electronic savvy of trip-hop with the sloe-eyed slither of torch songs, the spare keyboards subtly shifting as if subject to a subliminal lunar pull.

It's a striking accomplishment for a woman whose previous mu-sical output originated in the dry American Midwest. Tania, enticed by a need to travel (an urge that she says suffuses all Australians), moved to Chicago four years ago, quickly finding a home among the city's flock of prominent musicians. She spent her time there singing background vocaIs on albums by Joan of Arc and other heartland indie heartthrobs.

Now, after returning home, she's created an album that stands separate from the balkanized genres of the USA, one that embraces both a devout intimacy and an impressionistic sense of space in an entranc-ing and unique way. But ask her for further detail, and the ambiguities finally surface. "I just did it in my house and with different friends who had studios," she shrugs modestly. "We just kind of pieced it together."