Lisa Germano

Wasted late nights merge with narcotic hallucinations and transition into dreamy visions where grainy black and white is seared with bright flashes of colour — a drunken night choreographed by Terry Gilliam in the world of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s City of Lost Children. After a five-year absence, Lisa Germano returns to her muse with an introspective but strangely not depressing exploration of addiction’s pull. With its not-veiled titular reference to alcohol, Lullaby For Liquid Pig highlights songs like "From A Shell,” (featuring the cheery, for her, refrain of "It’s the buzz, it’s the buzz, it’s the buzz”) and "It’s Party Time,” a tribute/lament to losing yourself in cheap red wine. Having largely extricated herself from the music biz (with occasional guest appearances for a variety of friends), Germano finds herself reinvigorated if not more cheerful — the dreamscapes she creates here make it very clear why she had a home at UK label 4AD for most of her career. She pulls off a most magical trick here — creating an otherworldly trip into dark spaces without being depressing, joining you on a slow, somnambulant ride that’s still terribly compelling.