Singer/songwriter Lisa Germano has found an appropriate home for her current work on label Young God Records. Her dark, open-to-the-point-of-being-stripped-bare work fits perfectly with the rest of Michael Gira's roster.
Germano has worked with a wide variety of artists in her career but on "Magic Neighbor" she features the most important one yet: herself. Each track focuses on Lisa, on her voice, on her songwriting skill, on her (intentionally) spare instrumentation. Everything else (be they strings or train sounds) are accents. They reinforce what she has to say, they don't reinterpret.
The end result is simple and accessible, it's just Lisa and her instrument of choice (primarily piano on this collection). But those accents are clearly carefully chosen, they add a lot to these songs. I found myself able to dig into this album in a way that I could not on her previous recordings. Repeated listens were well rewarded.
