Lisa Germano, Lullaby for Liquid Pig [reissue]

reviewed by dave heaton

One of those albums I didn’t know went out-of-print but apparently did, Lullaby for Liquid Pig is underrated singer/songwriter/arranger Lisa Germano’s dark, beautiful 2003 album about addiction and other demons. I’d be tempted to call it her masterpiece, if I didn’t feel just as strongly, maybe even more so, about her 2006 album In the Maybe World. That album, her seventh, was released by Michael Gira’s Young God Records, a label that knows harrowing yet exhilarating music about darkness better than just about anyone. Young God’s reissue of Lullaby for Liquid Pig adds an entire CD of additional music. Featuring home recordings and live recordings – of songs from Liquid Pig and not, including some from Maybe World -- it’s an excellent showcase of her musical personality, a gift and treasure as much as it is a “bonus”.

Germano’s music is on the quieter side of the Young God label, yet fits right in for how forward-looking it is, and how she doesn’t back away from dealing with the rougher, scarier side of life. Musically the songs on Liquid Pig resemble elegant piano ballads or, yes, lullabies, but from another time or place, ghostly in appearance. And they are soothing and peaceful, yet at the same time challenging and disorienting. Or not disorienting actually, so much as capturing the feeling of being disoriented, the feeling that your life has gone strange, that the world around you is falling apart and you’re standing still watching everything fade away, powerless.

{www.younggodrecords.com}