A single letter provides the doorway into Lisa B’s ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse. Each of its six covers has a Y somewhere in the title: “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Spooky,” “Windy,” and “Everybody Get Together.” What began as a playful limitation gradually became the album’s governing question.
Y sounds like “why,” and Lisa uses that association to examine a familiar body of music. Why did these songs endure? Why did the language of love and freedom carry such political resonance in the 1960s? Why do their calls for change still feel unfinished? The Y-Verse offers no single answer, preferring a sequence of arrangements that allow the questions to remain active.
The title also suggests an alternate universe located slightly beside ordinary reality. That idea connects naturally with Lisa’s understanding of music as a participatory space, somewhere listeners can temporarily enter, reconsider their circumstances, and retune their attention. Her work as an intuitive reader informs that interest in listening beneath surfaces without overtaking the album’s musical focus.
Seven tracks are enough to establish the world she has in mind. The original “’60s Magic Now!” opens the collection as a vocal rap-drum duet with Jeff Marrs, while Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and the Youngbloods’ “Everybody Get Together” give the record its clearest statements about public change and collective responsibility.
Between them are four compelling figures: Mr. Fantasy, Ruby Tuesday, Spooky, and Windy. Each represents a different relationship to freedom and projection. Some are asked to carry other people’s desires, while others evade definition. Lisa’s new poetic passages look at how those characters function and what their independence might sound like when reconsidered today.
The current focus track, “Windy” gives the Y-Verse its most expansive mythological connection. Lisa links Windy with Oya, the Yoruba orisha associated with wind and transformation, before moving into a Latin pop-soul-jazz rendition. The association turns freedom into an active force capable of unsettling and renewing its surroundings.
Musically, “Windy” remains one of the record’s most immediately accessible moments. Sandy Cressman supplies background vocals, with Ben Flint on keyboards, Aaron Germain on bass, Jeff Marrs on drums, and Brent Sunderland on percussion. The song’s recognizable melody moves through a newly rhythmic setting, and an accompanying video gives the album a timely visual introduction.
Other songs choose different methods of revision. Lyrics Born’s guest rap on “Dear Mr. Fantasy” speaks directly from within the title character. “Spooky” provides its mysterious woman with an opportunity to respond. “Ruby Tuesday” develops into a fuller study of a woman defined by movement and refusal.
The album’s mixture of soul-jazz, funk, Latin music, hip-hop, folk, rock, and spoken word gives the Y-Verse a broad vocabulary. Dale “D-Wiz” Everingham and James Gardiner handle the engineering, while Lisa and Ben Flint shape the arrangements. Those choices keep the concept rooted in performance rather than explanation.
Released digitally today, August 21, ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse will arrive physically on September 25. Its letter-based premise may be easy to summarize, but the album itself resists a tidy conclusion. Lisa’s Y remains a fork in the road, a peace sign, and a question waiting for listeners to enter.
