Lisa Germano may be among the most watched and heard musicians most people would never recognize. Millions raised on MTV saw her playing fiddle in John Mellencamp's videos-- there she is, dancing in the "Paper and Fire" clip-- and millions more saw her perform with him on stage. But it's a given that only a fraction of a fraction of those audiences have followed Germano's career since striking out as a solo artist, as she's plumbed the depths of depression. Her music is tempered by only the barest glimmer of wry humor, much of it self-effacing. Geek the Girl and Excerpts From a Love Circus remain lost classics of the mid-1990s, but since then she's been hopping between gigs and labels, hoping for the best while knowing full well that few will ever listen to her music.
Germano's Lullaby for Liquid Pig was released back in 2003 on a fly-by-night label fueled by the fast-fading promise of the internet boom. Needless to say, it's been out of print for years, and as per the rules, its elusiveness has in turn perhaps over-inflated its stature. Regardless, the disc has now found a sympathetic ear in Michael Gira, who released Germano's most recent solo disc, the ghostly In the Maybe World, on his Young God label, and last year re-released Lullaby for Liquid Pig as well. In the Maybe World hardly lit the planet on fire, so good for Gira for helping Germano get Lullaby for Liquid Pig (her sixth album) back in circulation, even if its resurrection doesn't reveal the disc to be some sort of forgotten masterpiece so much as yet another strong, spooky, deceptively lush record from a niche songwriter who seemingly makes nothing but.
As with most Germano albums, the album's fleshed out by such friends and regular collaborators as bassist Sebastian Steinberg, drummer Joey Waronker, Wendy Melvoin, Johnny Marr, and Crowded House's Neil Finn, but as usual no one gets in Germano's way. It's not that she's forceful so much as a force of personality, her plain whisper the kind of delivery that gets you to lean in and focus. What you hear isn't terribly fun, but it is frequently beautiful, even as Germano sings of faded dreams and the perils of alcohol on woozy, headphone-friendly dream-state songs such as "Paper Doll", "Liquid Pig", "Candy", and "It's Party Time".
Added value aside, Lullaby for Liquid Pig doesn't benefit dramatically from a neither here nor there bonus disc of demos and rarities. However, the spare home recordings of several Lullaby tracks (as well as songs like "It's a Rainbow", from Germano's Giant Sand collaboration OP8) show Germano could probably get away with a totally DIY effort. The uptempo demo of "Dream Glasses Off" may even be a bit better than its murky, molasses-slow album version, though it's understandable why she might want some extra input to keep from totally insular indulgence.
And indulgent she is, but only in the most noble record-sales-be-damned sense. The scattered live tracks, recorded in Lisbon as well as at L.A.'s hangout showcase Largo, serve a more important purpose than the demos, emphasizing the fact that as glum as Germano can come across on record, she's still an entertainer, with actual applauding fans who aren't all slumped over in their seats overdosing on painkillers. In a lot of ways the modest and totally down-to-earth live tracks work as a sort of pull-away-the-curtain, anti-Tori Amos device, demonstrating that one needn't pose as a magician to make magic.
