By Scott D. Lewis
The Oregonian (Portland, OR) | June 13, 2003
Germano, who performs Friday night at the Aladdin Theater, wrote her first piece of music at age 7. It was a 15-minute piano-based opera, and she describes it as filled with “a lot of torture, loss and happy-ending stuff… strangely, not too unlike what I do now.”
After serving as John Mellencamp’s violin player during the late 1980s and early ’90s, Germano recognized her own creative needs and realized that the “big rock experience” was just not for her.
In 1991 she self-released “On the Way Down From the Moon Palace,” a collection of folky, naked poetics wrapped in a chilly blanket of lo-fi sounds. Capitol Records recognized Germano’s potential and issued her follow-up, “Happiness.” Anything but happy with the results and feeling that her art had been packaged as entertainment, she severed tied with the label and released the album the way she had intended on 4AD Records.
1994’s “Geek the Girl,” a series of stark stories concerning all types of sexual conflict and strain was met with popular and critical acclaim, but Germano continued following her own murky muse without apparent concern for results at the cash register. By crafting music that strives to engage rather than simply entertain, Germano has earned a loyal cultish following and unquestioned respect.
Her latest album, “Lullaby for Liquid Pig,” finds Germano in fine peculiar form. Her sparse, hung-over pop arrangements, gently stumbling tempos and trademark slurry vocals mesh to pull the listener into her world of dreams, delusions, and disillusionment.
Lisa Germano makes music for life’s smaller, quieter moments, those semiconscious scenes that most of us are seemingly determined to miss. Her music may not make anybody want to dance, but it is sure to them think.
Featured Image: Lisa Germano (Photo: Matthew Welch)
