Georgia Mancio - Silhouette (2010)

Silhouette, the third album by award-winning singer, Georgia Mancio, marks the end of her first decade as a professional performer and the beginning of her next as an accomplished writer and interpreter. Beginnings and endings; roads and journeys - both literal and metaphorical-; losses and gains are the recurring themes in this collection of 10 songs - 7 of which are written/co-written by Mancio.

Brought up bi-lingual in an Italian household, Mancio has always been fascinated by language and languages and excelled at English. Her talent for lyric writing, hinted at on the title track to her 2003 debut album, Peaceful Place, and in her new English translation of the Cuban classic, Tres Palabras, on the acclaimed 2008 release, Trapeze, now beats at the heart of Silhouette with startling maturity. Mirroring her performance style, Mancio's writing achieves that enviable combination of simplicity and strength: there are no wasted words, no hackneyed rhymes - this is a writer with something to say. Themes are refreshingly sophisticated: the modern day homage to Buddy Can You Spare a Dime? for our own 1929 (Finisterre); the South American road to ruin or salvation depending on your political point of view (TransOceanica); the old man (inspired by Citizen Kane) looking back at the end of his life (Silhouette); the sardonic swipe at religion and politics in the authorised lyric to Pat Metheny's Question and Answer now appropriately renamed Question The Answer. Into this mix are: a joyously intricate arrangement of the jazz standard, Just in Time; the heart-wrenching, near classical beauty of Antonio Carlos Jobim's Modinha and a hauntingly sparse bass and cello treatment of Tom Waits' Take it with Me.