Lisa B Finds New Possibilities Inside the Pop Songs of 1967 on ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse
The past functions as source material rather than sanctuary on Lisa B’s eighth full-length album, ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse. Released digitally today, August 21, with a physical edition following September 25, the seven-track collection revisits a group of songs largely drawn from 1967 and asks what their ideas might mean in the present.
That distinction shapes the entire record. Lisa B approaches familiar compositions as an arranger, poet, and interpreter, retaining their recognizable foundations while introducing soul-jazz, funk, Latin music, hip-hop, spoken word, folk, and rock. The resulting album examines the values attached to the 1960s with curiosity instead of treating the decade as a finished story.
Its compact track list gives the project a clear sense of purpose. “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Spooky,” “Windy,” and “Everybody Get Together” surround the original title track, “’60s Magic Now!” Together, they create a conversation about civil rights, communal responsibility, imagination, feminine autonomy, and the possibility of social change.
The newly highlighted “Windy” offers one of the album’s most complete examples of Lisa’s method. The Association’s 1967 hit becomes a Latin pop-soul-jazz performance, preceded by an invocation connecting its free-spirited central figure to Oya, the Yoruba goddess and orisha associated with wind, transformation, and feminine power.
That introduction alters the character without erasing her. Windy’s elusive freedom gains a mythological dimension, while the arrangement returns the song to the physical pleasures of rhythm and movement. Sandy Cressman contributes background vocals alongside Ben Flint on keyboards, Aaron Germain on bass, Jeff Marrs on drums, and Brent Sunderland on percussion. The accompanying “Windy” video extends the focus track’s release.
Elsewhere, Lisa gives several of the album’s women a degree of agency that their original songs left unresolved. “Ruby Tuesday” is reconsidered as a character study, while “Spooky” allows its mysterious woman to answer back. The additions feel consistent with a record interested in the freedoms suggested by 1960s pop and the limits that remained within those suggestions.
“Dear Mr. Fantasy” brings the project into an explicitly Bay Area context through a guest appearance by Lyrics Born. His original rap broadens the title character’s role, turning the song’s request for escape into a reflection on imagination and repair. The Pajama Studios session also reconnects Lyrics Born with mixing engineer Jim Gardiner, who worked on Latyrx’s debut album.
The Y-Verse concept began with a modest piece of wordplay: every covered song title contains the letter Y. Lisa expands that device through several associations. The letter poses a question, resembles a peace symbol, and names an adjacent universe where inherited ideas can be reconsidered. It gives the album a framework without making its songs feel subordinate to a concept.
Engineered by Dale “D-Wiz” Everingham and James Gardiner, with arrangements by Lisa B and Ben Flint, ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse is strongest when its historical and contemporary impulses occupy the same space. The album does not ask listeners to return to 1967. It considers which parts of that era’s musical imagination may still be useful, then gives those questions rhythm, voice, and room to move.
Lisa B will bring the project to The Back Room in Berkeley on October 3. The album is available digitally today through Lisa’s official channels, with its physical release scheduled for September 25.
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