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Lisa Germano | Review
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NY TIMES | Sia Michel Ms. Germano's music is beautifully haunted and composedJuly 17, '06in the maybe world (Young God Records)Listening to Lisa Germano's music is a painfully intimate experience, as if a teenage girl were revealing her cutting scars in a cafeteria corner. Though Ms. Germano is in her late 40's, she has always examined her emotional life with the raw confusion of an adolescent misfit. In the mid-90's, when female rockers were roaring about empowerment, Ms. Germano was brewing her own haterade, deeming herself 'angry and dumb but not too cool' in a narcotic whisper. (See 1994's brilliant 'Geek the Girl') On 'Lullaby for a Liquid Pig' (2003) she threatens, 'I'll tell you what / It's not going to be alright.'Her prediction was correct: 'It's all gone wrong,' she sings on 'Too Much Space,' from her hallucinatory new recording, 'in the maybe world.' Over spare, piano-based ballads, she explores isolation and conflicted love as if she were huddling naked on a floor at 4 a.m. Ms. Germano aims for a uniform bad-dream atmosphere, keeping tempo changes to a minimum, even when Johnny Marr, a former member of the Smiths, adds guest guitar. 'I want to go into oblivion,'......
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Lisa Germano | Interview
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pennyblackmusic.com | Sarah JohnsonSome people feel my music is too personal but I really don't think of it that wayJuly 06It's so easy to type cast the female singer/song writers that come out of America. Let's face it, most follow a sure-fire mix of piano ballads, folk-rock and poppy lyrics that often owes a lot to Joni Mitchell.Even those with an obvious style of their own, like Ani Difranco with her distinctive vocal style, or Regina Specktor's new take on the genre, still ultimately follow the grain. It is rare you find an artist that completely breaks the mould, but occasionally there is one bubbling under the surface of this well rehearsed collective.When Lisa Germano was signed to Capitol Records back in the early 90's the label thought they were on to a winner. A multi-instrumentalist with a unique smoky voice and with a song that they managed to put through production until it came out sounding like it fitted the grain."Basically I was signed for one song I wrote called 'You Make Me Wanna Wear Dresses'. This guy at Capitol thought that it could be a pop song so he signed me, but it was really the wrong thing......
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Angels of Light | Interview
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erasingclouds.com | dave heaton100 Musicians Answer the Same 10 Questions July 10/06Part Nineteen: Michael GiraSimply put, Michael Gira is a significant force in the world of independent, unconventional music. It's not only because his record label Young God Records has taken the admirable route of releasing intense, exciting music that has nothing to do with trends or fashion -- and pretty much introduced the world to Devendra Banhart, Calla, Akron/Family, Mi & L'au, and others. It's also, of course, because of the legacy of his former band Swans (1982-1997) and ignore to your own peril the music he's making nowadays as Angels of Light, most recently on a split album with Akron/Family and on the fantastic The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People'. Much of that stark, involving, dark, haunting music is to my ears the best that he's made yet, standing out in today's musical landscape as well. Song samples can be heard on the Young God website.What aspect of making music excites you the most right now?It doesn't excite me at all presently. It's like wresting with a huge and overgrown, retarded child, that keeps biting my neck, trying to devour my larynx. I feel that once I kill this......
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Akron/Family | Interview
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erasingclouds.com | dave heaton100 Musicians Answer the Same 10 Questions July 10/06Part Twenty-One: Seth Olinsky of Akron/FamilyAkron/Family are tripping on some whole other plane of existence...no, don't think of hippies or psychedelics or whatever. Think of a whole new thing, cause there's no band making music right now (or ever?) that sounds quite like them. Listen to their self-titled album (Young God), or the album they did with Angels of Light (Young God), or preferably both. They're virtuoso musicians trying to channel another universe in their songs, by loading them with surprises, with melodies and harmonies, with ideas, sounds from all over the place, and a general feeling that's both freewheeling/intergalactic and grounded in our humble existence. Seth Olinsky sings and plays a ton of instruments with the band (as all four of them do). For more information and songs visit their website, their MySpace page or the Young God website.What aspect of making music excites you the most right now?Devotional singing, expansive outside-the-window truck noises, perhaps-ego-driven writing of a hundred little ditties at home and maybe (or maybe not) playing them with friends....the sound part? No... the feeling part? No, definitely the sound.What aspect of making music gets you......
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Lisa Germano | Review
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Playback Magazine | Kevin RenickDefinitely Back In the Maybe World Saturday, 01 July 2006"You have to be so self-focused and keep working in this business. I sometimes think I'm just being very selfish, not doing anything for the world, you know?"Some singer/songwriters do it by the book. They release albums filled with ear-friendly melodies, sing-along choruses, and immaculately produced tunes suitable for car commercials or the latest teen movie soundtracks. But there's another kind of singer/songwriter, the kind that creates deeply personal, emotionally raw music intended for a more select group of listeners-the ones who seek cathartic release from their music and still play albums from start to finish. For such listeners, it's gonna be a good summer: Lisa Germano is back. The enigmatic Californian was last heard from on 2002's brilliant but scarily intense "Lullaby for Liquid Pig", a record containing some of the most nakedly vulnerable moments ever committed to tape. There was undeniable therapeutic power in that disc, but many wondered if Germano was planning to call it a day after laying her demons so bare. Was there any danger Liquid Pig could have been the artist's swansong? 'I never know," said Germano, reached by phone during......