Wendy Eisenberg has been getting raves for their songwriting, banjo picking, keyboard work and genre-breaking guitar playing for more than a decade. They’re noted for their work as a side-person and in bands like Lower Chamber, an LGBTQ free-improv group, as well as numerous punk, art-rock and folk outfits. They also teach songwriting at The New School. On their new self-titled album, recorded in their home studio with a small band of friends, they had time to explore the back catalog of songs they’d accumulated over the years. In the arrangements, they returned to a more basic singer-songwriter sound, although traces of experimental music and fractured rhythms remain evident.

On “Vanity Paradox,” Eisenberg’s fingerpicking on electric guitar lays down a simple rhythm, supported by Trevor Dunn’s bass and Ryan Sawyer’s sparse drumming. Their muted vocals dance through the mix, improvising on the melody. They add extended notes and vocalese interludes to insightful, poetic lyrics, sharing the heartaches and small victories that make life worth living. How our understanding of the world changes as we grow up is addressed on “Meaning Business.” The elaborate arrangement incorporates elements of jazz, classical, folk, bluegrass and ’60s pop. Eisenberg sings quietly, describing the confusion of adolescence and the comfort they got in tuning out the world to embrace the loneliness they felt. “The Ultraworld” blends jazz and country, with Mari Rubio’s sustained chords on pedal steel adding an ethereal sound.

Throughout, Eisenberg pivots between vocalese and brief spoken-word passages, recounting how events unfolded, as they moved from unconscious repression to a fully lived existence—Eisenberg sings about the countless ways life can be experienced, with its rewards and uncertainties. Every track on the album turns in surprising musical directions, with Eisenberg’s imaginative lyrics pushing the usual boundaries of pop song structures.