Diamanda Galás

Malediction does something special for me because she sounds more conventional - never really conventional, but at least not as freaky. The freaky mixed in with the not so freaky makes it all sound more powerful by way of contrast. Favorites: "The Thrill is Gone", "My World is Empty Without You", "25 Minutes to Go".

My first exposure to her was "Litanies of Satan" and "Wild Women with Steak Knives," but the CD containing those may be hard to find. (I don't own it myself, actually.) The more recent AIDS related works probably are a better starting point. (I like "Vena Cava," though it's not the sort of thing I listen to regularly.)

If you get a chance to see her live, I definitely recommend that. The recordings only partially capture the multi-media, intense, performances she gives.

Oddest place I've ever heard her -- as a backing vocalist on Erasure's self-titled semi-prog-rock album!

surely the point of a good cover version cover is to find things in a song that you thought were not there.

''Oddest place I've ever heard her -- as a backing vocalist on Erasure's self-titled semi-prog-rock album!''

you learn something from ILM every day don't you! just amazing...it probably only happenened because they were on the same label (and they both wanted it, I suppose).

I see your point Julio, but it's as if the songs she covers turn into caricatures of Diamanda Galas. The thing is, I'm not sure that she's finding something that is there in the song, or is superimposing something of herself onto the song. It's been a while since I've listened to her covers, so I can't get too specific. They're not bad, but I haven't found them satisfying. Find something new, yes, but completely reorient the song: maybe not. While her voice is great, somehow it seems that it belongs in the context of her own compositions. Just my take on it.

But I don't want to be too critical of her, since I'm afraid she might track me down, break into my apartment, and forcibly sodomize me some dark night. She has said in interviews that she hates her audience, so I prefer to keep my distance (though she might be favorably impressed with my Oum Kalthoum collection, as she is an admirer).

There's also a companion album, La Serpenta Canta, which is a collection of her blues reinterpretations we've come to expect and, uh, enjoy. It's very good as well.

But I love all of it.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2003-12-25/music3.html/1/index.html

Great show, and terrifying too.

the CD that combines 'Divine Punishment'/'Saint of the Pit' is still my favorite. the sustained note on 'Deliver Me From Mine Enemies'.

Ok this is another one of Aaron's dumb ass "is yours like mine" questions. I just got "The Mask of the Red Death" which comes in the old school fat 2-CD jewel case. I open it up (new copy) and....no booklet. Was there even one in the first place? I only ask because when you look it up on the internet, there's all these song titles that are nowhere to be found on the outside cover. So, anyone else who's got this just let me know if there's supposed to be a booklet and if so, what was in it. thanks.

This album is sick as fuck btw, but in a good way.

if you are in new york this week go see her rbma set if you at all like her

New albums en route:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/diamanda-galass-on-new-music-adele-taylor-swift-don-rickles-w461868

Say I'm up here, I'm starting with the amanes, then I'm going through these things – people call it "microtonal inflections" – what the fuck do they know from microtonal inflections? It's not microtones, it's complicated melodies, that's what amanes are. It's microtonal, but we don't use that word there.

Attention imago.

she is a force of nature

Saw her last night at St. Vibianas in LA last night. Umm.... wow. Bears repeating that puny human recording tech cannot really record the full-on effect of seeing her live.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2881/33839332896_78bf02abaa.jpgDiamanda Galás @ Vibiana, Los Angeles

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2857/33839333696_608a57ec0a_z.jpgDiamanda Galás @ Vibiana

We'll be seeing her here Saturday -- can't wait.

Let us know if "Refugee" (seen on the set list above) is the Tom Petty song.

Good to know she's back, and this thread reminded me of a couple of things. I still need to hear her album with John Paul Jones, and also to check---yeahhh, this is still here: Last Exit with DG and Billy Bang, live at Moers New Jazz Festival, in 1986:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1664

Last Exit with DG

!!!!!!!!

There's a recording from last week that has appeared on a couple of torrent sites. Not listened to it yet.

Don’t know where to put this so: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/style/she-taught-new-york-to-sing.html

Great article, thank you for posting it!!

Sure. Love reading about people like that.

Diamanda's own comments are also worth reading:

"GUILTY!
The citizens of NY know a bug when they see one. NYC has big bugs: and they are easy to see.
Do not let anyone hand you the bulls**t line, "We must assume Lauren Pazienza is innocent until proved guilty." Cowards talk like that. They are afraid of their own vacuum cleaners.
Pazienza is guilty. Let all the rich folks she hangs with protest her innocence. Let her defense lawyer say that someone tripped and Barbara died because of it. Let him say that "pushing someone onto the sidewalk is not the same as throwing them under a train."
Listen to fools say that because she was 87 years old, that Barbara Maier, who walked miles every day, was frail. Wirey does not mean "frail."
Don't refer to Barbara as an old lady. She was anything but an old lady. She was tough. She worked ten hours a day and worked on Broadway and the theatre, and then she would go to see a student perform at the end of the day. You call that frail?
Do not be impressed with the mewings of the crawlers who say about the perpetrator, "But this is her first offense. We need to understand why." We do not need to understand why. There is no good reason.
"But she was a member in good standing among the cognoscenti. A sophisticate. An event planner!" There are plenty of the cognoscenti who should be locked up.
At the drop of a hat, a poor man or woman will be arrested and thrown in jail for what? For holding some painkillers.
This is a murder.
The clothes Pazienza wore at the killing are the same clothes she wore entering her boyfriend's building hours later. She hid out at her parents' house until her lawyer convinced her that turning herself in would enable a lighter sentence.
If anyone one feels strongly about seeing her released, you have only to help with the bail money. Put up your house!
Did she forget to take her Prozac that day? That's the reason!
The Post just referred to her as a fiery redhead. I guess The Post thinks that murderesses are sex objects.
There is far too much evidence that Pazienza is a killer.
Think of the blood of an innocent woman. Think of Barbara Maier and her suffering on those last days in the hospital.
Think of how much she gave the city of New York. She is missed by hundreds of people who are wondering how to continue their lives without her.
And do not spread your "reasonable doubts" around the city because you have nothing else to do. There is a jury in the city. They don't need to hear that caterwauling.
Heavy time was named after persons like Lauren Pazienza.
COME, JUSTICE."

I just glanced at Barbara M’s FB page but can’t deal with it at the moment.

Okay, clicked through some of her photos and came across one of her with a jazz singer I've seen and it brought it that much closer to home, not that the story didn't already hit home.

Diamanda is about the last person on earth I would want to have really, really mad at me

I think I read an article, or heard an interview, where somebody asked "what do you do to unwind?" and her response was, "I sit cross-legged on the floor of my living room, close my eyes, and manifest terrible things upon my enemies."

One of my favorite Diamanda quotes comes from Eugene Robinson of Oxbow; he asked her to collaborate and she responded "your voice sucks, your band sucks and you have small hands." As one would after being on the receiving end of such a blast, he quotes her frequently.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-sidewalk-shove-funeral-20220326-knh7or2t3fefrlgwmfde33d2hy-story.html

"Diamanda is about the last person on earth I would want to have really, really mad at me"

--- the most otm thing ever posted to ILX

I'll always wonder if that was actually her i sat next to in the balcony at the SWANS ULU show that became Public Castration Is A Good Idea.
Looked like her and i was coming down from speed. Which also meant i missed most of the Mark Stewart & The Maffia set that was the support.
I thyink she was London based at the time cos Kid Congo had been painting her flat a bit earlier in I think the same year.

The article/interview in Forcedexposure was quite revelatory. Probably had some of the same info appear in other interviews since but I think that was the first in depth one I'd read with her. Talking about her past and things like her being married to John French of Beefheart fame etc.

I do enjoy her This Sporting Life collaboration with JOhn Paul Jones & The Singer was fun .
THink I still need to get physical copies of cds of her main works though.

off topic but i'd have loved to have been at that ULU gig. i saw the edinburgh date of that tour but alas no Mark Stewart & The Maffia. i'm seeing Mark Stewart & The Maffia on Sunday but have a feeling it will be a lot tamer than the '86 incarnation.

last time i saw Diamanda Galas they announced nobody would be allowed to leave once the performance started. long before half way through several people were begging to be let out, to no avail.

I saw her in 2018 for the first time and thought the show was a little mild, but I chalked it up to her age and can’t quite sustain the vocal intensity of the 1980s. Still a good show though.

A really good New York Times profile just landed, which reminds me that I don't think I ever posted my 2019 interview with her on ILX. I wanted to use the full interview as an episode of my podcast, but I let her hear it first and she said no. I didn't argue.

haha smart man

Amazing, thanks for the heads up

i had to go and listen to Saint Of The Pit after reading that. it sounds ever more incredible as the years go by. i feel CLEANSED.

That Last Exit Moers set I mentioned on here several years ago, also with Billy Bang's electric violin, is really hot---she doesn't sing on all of it, but makes her imprint for sure---you get the whole thing if you subscribe to Laswell's bandcamp for $22 a month---or choose the Unperson Plan: sign up, take alll the rare goodies in one month, then cancel:
https://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/album/moers (BL also has some freebie streams, like this year's 24-bit Ask The Ages)

her new "Broken Gargoyles" album is insanely great and terrifying, Happy Halloween

https://diamandagalas.bandcamp.com/album/broken-gargoyles

Was listening to Hal Willner's Weird Nightmare: Meditations On Mingus today and there's a track where Leonard Cohen reads Mingus's poem "The Chill of Death" while Galás wails like a ghost in the background.