Lisa Germano
On The Way Down From The Moon Palace

It is a beautiful album. I was lucky; I found it a few days ago, at the "kolosseobologna" music market fair, in Parma. I stocked up well the other day; I practically bought everything: practically the entire discography of Black Tape For A Blue Girl, the magnificent Desertshore and Marble Index by Nico (which, strangely enough, I couldn't find originals of anywhere), I listened to my best friend by buying "Silence" by Sonata Arctica which, in my very humble opinion, everything in this album is awful starting from the horrendous cover. And then I also found, rummaging through the most hidden, dusty, and dimly lit nooks, something by Lisa Germano; the fragile, little Lisa. I already had "Happiness" and "Geek the Girl" by her, albums that I especially liked, so I decided to get all the albums there were, four in total: "Slide", not particularly beautiful, "Excerpts From A Love Circus", a sublime album but perhaps, in the long run, too monotonous, "Lullaby For A Liquid Pig", which remains among my favorites and, finally, in my opinion, the most beautiful of all, the one I will talk about today.

Do you know the love at first sight? Do you believe in it? I don't, I've never believed in it, I don't believe at all in the sweet and gentle utopia of a platonic, naive, selfless, perfect love... Yet it is exactly what I felt and still feel for her, the fragile Lisa, an angel thrown on earth who, instead of joyfully and hopefully singing to you the beauties of the paradise from which she came, has instead the good taste to reveal to you impassively, with a sharp and piercing note of anguish, all the pain, melancholy, and anxiety that, scared and perhaps a bit disappointed, she observes around her; with a touch of sadism, she immediately deprives you of the joy of seeing her wings, marvelous and shiny... indeed, with an unseen audacity, she hides them from you with both hands, abandoning you in complete darkness, and, not satisfied with that, wants to accompany your silence and sad abandonment with her sweet lullabies and the melancholic sobs of her violin; and you can do nothing but sit resigned in the darkest and saddest corner of the universe, abandon all hope, all resentment, and all fear, and, willingly or unwillingly, listen to her, hear her laments as a little sad angel.

This is, in summary, the soul of "On the Way Down From The Moon Palace", one of the deepest and most original albums of singer-songwriter music ever. Worth noting is the disturbing "Riding my bike", the splendid "Cry Baby" (perhaps the most beautiful song I have ever listened to in my entire life), the unreal ballad "Guessing Game", the intimate and whispered "The Other One" and, finally, the superb instrumental "Dark Irie"; and, I'm sure, you'll also fall in love with the little, fragile Lisa. And if you too don't believe in love at first sight, in the end, you will have to believe in it. Because she, little sad angel, seizes you, grasps you, and gently pushes you into the darkness, into the gloom. And then she begins again, singing anew, and you, collapsed on the ground as if dead can't do otherwise but to listen, once more, to her pale laments; and you can do nothing but love her. And perhaps you will fall in love also with the small and fragile protagonists of her sad songs, all women or rather girls, who if you take off the mask, are all Lisa Germano in terms of fragility: sweet and unaware of the cruelties that exist in the world out there, raw and real, which they haven't yet had the chance to see because hidden in the simplicity, and perhaps the mediocrity of their banal and harmless existence. And certainly, you will hate with all your soul all those men in black with bad intentions, all those Big Bad Wolves that will put a clear end to their joy. This is Lisa Germano: naive Little Red Riding Hood in the dark forest, whispering softly in the darkness, macabre stories of anguish, rapes, abuses, injustices, pains, fears, embarrassments, and yes, even of small joys...

And you will love this little sad angel, rest assured, you can only love her: and perhaps, but only then, you will unexpectedly glimpse some silver light among the darkness: it is she, the little sad angel who, moved by your tears finally allows you to observe and touch her great and wonderful wings, revealing to you that not all is lost in this gray world and that there exists, somewhere in the universe, a small glimmer of hope.