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Lisa Germano | Review
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erasingclouds.com | dave heatonit's so stop-you-in-your-tracks transfixing July 06In the Maybe WorldLisa Germano is not the sort of musician who gets written about everywhere you look, or whose new record is going to be talked about by everyone you know. But maybe she should be, as each of her albums (Geek the Girl, Lullaby for Liquid Pig, and the others) is a work of vision, one where by putting it on you're entering a distinct place. Her songs are intimate and moving yet convey an odd, haunting mood, and she performs them in a raw, beguiling way.All of that is especially true of In the Maybe World, to my ears her best album, and one of the few albums this year that I just can't turn away from or easily forget. The title alludes to the space between life and death, perhaps, and the songs themselves do contain a fair amount of allusions to death and disappearance and ghosts and other unreal beings (like fairies), though more than the words it's often the music and atmosphere that convey this unearthly feeling of floating or vanishing. At the same time, it isn't escape music, but has a strong physical presence; her singing......
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Lisa Germano | Review
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brainwashed.com | Matthew JeanesGermano's best songs here are dark even though they sound hopeful"In the Maybe World" Monday, 17 July 2006Lisa Germano's latest record (her first for Young God) is beautifully weird. Any record that lays out the line "Go to hell/Fuck you" as the sing-along hook to a lush, folky lullaby can't be bad!If "Red Thread," the bitter argument song built around what must be the most sweetly sung expletive in the history of recorded music were the only thing worth paying attention to on In the Maybe World, the record would still be worth picking up at full price. The fact that the album is loaded with other gems that are odd but impeccably pretty makes it a steal at any price.This is a great record to escape into. It's filled with vague stories that sound somehow familiar and it's produced with familiar instruments that sound somehow foreign. I love that kind of reversal of expectations, and Germano's unique approach takes songs that could have easily been rendered as background noise and makes them something that demands focus.The only time she loses me is when the rhymes get too obvious, or the lyrical content steps too far into the......
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Lisa Germano | Review
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Illinois Times | Rene Spencer Saller beauty is something that "Maybe" has in spadesIn the Maybe WorldJULY 20, 2006Lisa Germano's publishing company is called Emotional Wench, a name that is, to quote Homer Simpson, funny because it's true. In the annals of indie dysfunction, few singer/songwriters have plumbed the poetics of self-loathing as rigorously as Germano has. Since 1991, when the former John Mellencamp violinist released her solo debut, she's been singing about feeling fat, getting trashed, and being duped by herself and others. The liner notes to her third album, 1994's Geek the Girl, provided the following useful gloss: "This is the story of geek the girl, a girl who is confused about how to be sexual and cool in the world but finds out she isn't cool and gets constantly taken advantage of sexually, gets kind of sick and enjoys giving up but at the end still tries to believe in something beautiful and dreams of still loving a man in hopes that he can save her from her s**t life . . . ha ha ha what a geek!" In one agonizing, hilarious run-on sentence, she described not only the gist of that particular album but also,......
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Lisa Germano | Review
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slantmagazine.com/ | Preston Jones Germano's gift lies in being able to splice together disparate elements, creating a unique whole that doesn't fade away easilyJuly '06In The Maybe WorldYoung God, 2006Left-of-center pop waif Lisa Germano has probably been tagged a "freak" more than once in her life. Amusing, then, that not long into her seventh album, In The Maybe World, she repeats "one of us" as either relentless homage to Tod Browning's classic Freaks or uncomfortable affirmation. It's ironic, too, that Germano would land at one of the flagship freak-folk record labels at this stage in her career; she's arguably pioneered the idiosyncratic brand of thoughtful, if slightly downright bizarre, music popularized by the likes of Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. Her precious, oddly orchestrated worldview makes for fascinating, poignant, and precisely damaged listening; the album feels like the sonic diary of a shy art-school outcast. Songs like "Too Much Space," "Moon In Hell," and the astral title track suggest a quaint music box going full-tilt under black lights and disco balls‹calming and engaging on the one hand, unnerving and eccentric on the other. Germano's gift lies in being able to splice together disparate elements, creating a unique whole that doesn't......
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Lisa Germano | Review
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www.indieworkshop.com | Grant Capes In The Maybe World bears the hallmarks of a classically written album of emotionally charged balladsJuly 20/'06In The Maybe WorldYoung God RecordsYoung God Records gets the official title of "label that will most likely uncover hidden treasures that will eventually head out to major labels", narrowly beating out Touch & Go for the honors. I mean, if you consider Devendra Banhart, Larsen, Mi and Lau, the Akron Family, and now the lush and enticing world of Lisa Germano.In The Maybe World is an all too brief taste of this beautiful songwriter's subtle abilities to tug at heartstrings and bore inside your mind. Germano's words are brutal and to the point, accurately mixing inner disappointment with external let downs. Her voice is like a smoldering fire, giving off just enough heat, but also choking you a little. She sounds like she is right next to you, whispering her sweet words in your ear, while alternatively twisting the knife and tucking in the sheets. Accompanied by piano, bass, violin and sometimes Rhodes, Lisa Germano's hushed voice ends up being an instrument far more complex and sublime. It barely rises above the already gently and quiet instrumentation.Bordering close to the......