Sam Phillips has reinvented herself. Her big star pop persona is gone, replaced by a starkly gothic singer/songwriter with an album that screams to be heard.

Phillips has moved from Virgin Records and its big-time/big-budget productions that propelled her to pop stardom with 1988’s The Indescribable Wow and 1996’s Omnipop. Signed now to the highly respected “art” label Nonesuch, Fan Dance is a comeback album, a change of directions, and perhaps a mid-life crisis all rolled into one.

This album is produced by Phillips’ husband, T-Bone Burnett. But this time, the duo has thrown out the Beatles-style pop orchestrations and replaced it with a sparse style that places Phillips’ passionate lyrics front and center.

Other contributors include avant garde guitarist and banjoist Marc Ribot, American traditionalist Gillian Welch, and a handful of arrangements by Van Dyke Parks. As always, Ribot’s fretwork shines. His jangling sound and off-kilter harmonies run like a vein of barbed wire through the heart of Phillips’ compositions.