No Elephants

With just Sebastian Steinberg on acoustic bass and producer Jamie Candiloro adding drum loops and effects, Lisa Germano wanders into the gentle, dark night and broadcasts her proudly obscure songs like a dream across the oceans. For the title track, she sits at the piano and plays something like a prayer; it's the album's longest song at four and a half minutes. The remaining tunes often play like ambient tone poems where the mission is to enforce the dark mood. "Back to Earth" bangs its guitar against the elliptical and bizarre keyboard lines before leading into "Haunted," where Germano appears to have fallen down a rabbit hole into a wonderland where the dollhouse is under eerie renovation and the snowglobe on her desk has been shaken. Her voice heads into "Haunted" with a high cry that's emphasized by the unsettling orchestration. "A Feast" adds ethereal instrumental touches that hit the ground when the piano pulls up. Germano's willfully odd approach creates a love-it-or-hate-it album. Those who go with its flow will likely find themselves agreeing to its difficult beauty—knowing Germano may be unusual, but sometimes so is life.